Wasteland Ghost
by Wolfboywarrior
Summary: Ruby is crazy as most Vault Dwellers come, And when her dad leaves the vault suddenly she is forced to leave the Vault and find him and eventually save the Capital Wasteland as she meets many friends and foes along the way. Rated M for insanity,sex,potential rape and lots and lots of death VARIOUS REFERENCES INBOUND!
1. Chapter 1:Memories

**Hey guys I'm really sorry about this but I'm currently putting my Blue Heaven's feel story on hold currently while I can research a bit more for it meanwhile here is the first of hopefully many fallout-franchise fanfics I hope to write. **

It was a big day for James rushed a stretcher down the hallway of the Jefferson Memorial facility as he consoled and comforted his wife Catherine as doctors rushed to his side helping her into the makeshift emergency room they had prepared for wounded personnel. "Cmon Cmon Catherine your doing fine this will be the best day ever for us!" he said encouragingly patting her sweating face with a rag. She could only weakly smile at him as she groaned and cried out in pain as she went through labor. After several nail-biting hours she had successfully been able to give birth as James gazed at his new daughter who seemed to strangely have abnormally pale skin and carrying glittering red eyes he couldn't help but smile and fight back tears at how beautiful she looked. "It's a girl! We got a daughter Catherine! A healthy baby girl!" he cried excitedly showing her to his wife. She was already in tears as she gazed at the newborn child. "Shes so cute…I think we should name her Ruby..." she gasped through weak breaths. James looked down at the little girl gazing into those glistening red eyes and felt that the name fit her perfectly. He turned towards Doctor Madison Li who had assisted with the procedure and was standing beside him watching happy yet felt a tinge of jealousy for James's good fortune "Madison could you bring the life placement pad? I want to see what my daughter is-" and that's when he began to hear Catherine's breathing become eratic. "James…? James..!" she gasped panicking in fear as her heart beat uncontrollably. "Catherine…?! Shes in cardiac arrest!" He said putting Ruby down into the crib and turned towards Madison and the other doctors. "Grab the compression and get the baby out of here! MOVE! MOVE!" And that was the last Ruby Hanson ever saw of her mother.

_5 years later_

5-year old Ruby Hanson snuck through the halls of Vault 101 always sticking to the dark unlit areas trying to force back a giggle as she could hear her best and closest friend Amata Almodovar walked through the halls looking for her. "Cmoooonnn this is unfair Ruby! You know I'm not gonna be able to find you like this!" she cried out trying not to giggle from Ruby's almost supernatural ability to sneak through the shadows. _And this is the same girl I'd always read manga and watch anime with. _She thought with delight remembering all the times when they would always go to their secret clubhouse in the vault reactor area and watch anime and read their favorite manga even though she could be such a nerd sometimes especially with what her friend knew about history. Her and Ruby had been close from the day they could first walk, she always stuck close to Amata always refusing to leave any room that she was in unless she was behind her. She walked into the small park-like atrium area as she heard what sounded like a giggle right behind her. "Kyaaahh!" Ruby cried out as she tackled her friend into the grass giggling and cracking off a crazy childish grin. "Okay Wrath you got me!" Amata said amidst her giddy giggling. Ruby rolled off of her covering her mouth as if in shock "oh please I couldn't be Wrath from the first Full Metal Alchemist anime I'm not that cute!" That day of hide-and-seek was a day that would stick with the both of them for the rest of their lives.

_5 years later_

Little 10-year Ruby rolled out of bed out of exhaustion clad in her little vault tank top and shorts although she began feeling embaressed by it due to the last examination she had with dad said that her breasts were starting to develop. _Uggghhh! This is so embaressing! I'm barely 10 years old and my shirts are already pressing on my chest! Even that stupid vault suit is starting to become uncomfortable! _She thought hugging herself in complete embaressment, that was when she realized that all seemed silent around her with no sounds of footsteps. "Dad? Are you awake?" She walked out of her room barefoot as she peeked around their quarters seeing a letter on the dining table. She walked over and picked up seeing that it was from Dad and read it.

_Meet me in the Vault Diner okay? Sorry I didn't wake you. –Dad_

She put the letter down thinking over what Dad would want to meet with her about. "I wonder if hes treating me to some chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream?" She mumbled but then shook her head believing that the meaning of the letter felt like more than that. She quickly dressed and brushed her teeth as she walked out going towards the Diner slightly unnerved that the entire vault felt more silent than usual amidst Alphonse's usual bickering among some of the residents. _He maybe the Overseer and Amata's dad but jeez hes always such a big bully to everybody, me and dad especially. _She thought as she stepped into the Diner filled with darkness and was suddenly blinded by a heavenly white light and heard chants of "Happy Birthday!" She rubbed her eyes as she could hear Officer Gomez telling Stanley how he had turned on the lights too fast. When her sight had returned she could see her dad and Amata smirking sheepishly at her as she realized that they were the masterminds behind the surprise party. Dad smiled at her as he said. "Happy Birthday honey your 10 years old now..! If only your mother could see you right now she'd be-" Unfortunately that heart-warming moment was cut short as Alphonse butted in front of her saying "Happy Birthday now that your 10 years old you will be given new responsiblities and in honor of this you will be given your very own Pip-Boy 3000." He said with an authoratative tone as he smirked mumbling. "Get used to it…" and turned walking back to his table. Ruby could do nothing but impale him with her red eyes full of hatred as she remembered how Shion tortured her grandma whom she had hated in the Higurashi anime and smiled to herself promising for herself and for Amata's sake that she'd make sure he would survive her own torture of him.

She put on the Pip boy glove and cuffed the wrist-mounted computer onto her wrist as she hugged Dad and ran over to Amata beaming with delight. "Happy Birthday! We really surprised you didn't we?" Amata said smiling at Ruby's happiness and clutched the latest arc of the Higurashi manga behind her back. "Thanks Amata I'm glad you guys did this for me." She said smiling and still beaming happy her red eyes seeming to sparkle like jewels. "Your welcome, your dad did most of the work, I just handed out the invitations and stuff, he was worried you were onto us, but I told him not to worry, your so easy to fool." She giggled genuinely knowing how clever it was that Amata was able to hide this from her. "I bet you cant guess what your present is! Go on! Guess!" Ruby shuffled twiddling her fingers shyly as she mumbled "Ummm I don't know" She giggled happily "ha! Whats your favorite psycho manga? That's right Higurashi! 3rd arc! And with nooo missing pages!" Ruby gasped in shock and almost tackled her to the ground almost screaming happily. "Thank you so much Amata! I'll keep this with me forever!"

All that seemed like centuries ago as Ruby first stepped out of the of the grinding vault door trying to force back the tears that were forming in her eyes passing the various blackened skeletons that were casualties of the war and the bombs that scorched the earth so long ago. As she stepped through the door, 19-year old Ruby Hanson covered her eyes from the bright sunlight and walked out onto the balcony-like overlook and first laid eyes on the Capitol Wasteland. She dropped her pistol and fell to her knees "Oh my god…" was all she could say as she wondered how she was going to survive on the outside and how she was gonna find her dad.


	2. Chapter 2: Histories and compulsive loot

Ruby sat there for what to her felt like hours as she gazed out at the desolate ruin of what had once been the United States of America. _I really wish you were here beside me now Amata…I'm already lonely _She thought as she finally stood up grabbing her 10mm pistol and stepped down the hill towards the broken pre-war road walking down into the ghost town that used to be the happy community of Springvale. She gazed at the ruined houses and decided to start looking for supplies letting her habit of looting random items get the better of her despite the massive weight that the equipment she looted in the vault was bringing down on her. She began softly singing one of her favorite songs from one of her favorite World War 2-based anime when she began hearing what sounded like the Star Spangled Banner and a humming moving nearby outside of the house she was looting.

She laid her hand on the handle of her pistol as she slowly walked out cautiously peeking out and seeing what looked like a close relative of the Soviet "Sputnik" satellite. She pulled out her pistol cautiously aiming at it as it wandered around seemingly in a set patrol pattern as she heard the song end and the voice of a man was heard. "Hello sweet America this is your President John Henry Eden and its time we had a chat…" And the voice continued its message as it harmlessly passed her. She watched it go by bewildered at how in the hell could any semblance of the old and idiotic American pre-war government could still be surviving somewhere in the Capital Wasteland. _And to think that stupid war only started simply because China and the U.S. had a fucking trade disagreement. And they call young people like me kids! _She wondered frustratingly cursing the dead ghosts of the Pre-War government for doing the things that they did to destroy the identity of their own nation and to turn the entire planet into a scorched corpse. She continued walking among the houses sulking silently that she had read so much on American history right down to what secret military documents she was able to find from Alphonse's terminal. "Sickening…so god damn sickening…" she mumbled as she stopped and saw the green glint of a safe lying in the dirt and garbage filled floor of the house she was staring at. She couldn't help but grin with delight as she walked into the house towards the safe and took out her lock picks and began to work her rogue-ish magic picking the lock on the safe as it opened up revealing the stash inside to be a small bottle of Rad-X, three grenades, a Psycho-filled syringe and an old Chinese pistol causing her to squeak happily with delight as she immediately began stuffing them in her pack gazing at the Chinese Pistol. "Hmm…never thought I'd lay my hands on a Chinese type 17 pistol…the legendary Broomhandle…now I just need a motorcycle and a sexy biker outfit!" She giggled at the reference she made to one of her favorite video game franchises and frowned as she saw how lousy of a condition it was in. _200 hundred years has NOT done this poor Broom any favors…oh well I'll keep it safe for now _She thought as she stuffed the gun into her pack mumbling to herself how she wished it was the original German developed model.

After she stepped out of the house she saw what looked to be a school. She wondered if anyone could still be alive inside and shrugged softly smiling to herself indulging her own hunger for an adventurous exploration beginning to get back on the road she gazed at the houses that survived the initial atomic blasts seeing that they were all boarded up except for one. "Huh…I wonder if anyone is inside now." She said to nobody in particular but herself as she stepped towards the house solemnly imagining the unimaginable terror people must have felt sitting in their homes seeing the bombs crash into the earth just seconds before they were either eternally blinded by the divinely bright light of the explosion or their flesh was immediately ripped from their bodies in the rushing and scorching heat that the blasts released upon detonation. She stopped at the front door of the house as she touched the handle of her pistol that Amata gave her as if it were a talisman slowly stepping through the entrance opening the door and closing it behind her as she arrived inside. She only had a minute to look around the dreary and decaying interior of the house as she heard footsteps moving towards her as she saw a woman who looked to be in her late thirties and going into her early forties as the woman began to snarl at Ruby as she asked "Who the hell are you?! Did Moriarity send you here?!" Ruby was momentarily taken aback with surprise at the blonde-haired woman's abrupt anger and paranoia noticing the 32 caliber revolver on her hip. _That pistol was always known for being weak as all hell but it was also good as a concealed quick-draw weapon, I better not take the risk of this woman being a gunslinger. _She thought as she raised her hands showing that she meant no harm saying "Whoa whoa please miss calm down, who is Moriarity?" she asked as she mentally prepared to mercilessly gun the woman down in the event she had a paranoid itchy trigger-finger. The woman seemed to calm down a little as she almost gazed at her in confusion. "Moriarity, the owner of Moriarity's Saloon in Megaton, that bastard won't leave me alone demanding I need to pay him 400 caps!" Ruby immediately caught on to the word "caps" as she read about it being the currency of post-war Wasteland America from Old Lady Palmer's journals as she suddenly had an idea. "Okay listen, you give me the caps and I'll go tell him that you're gone alright? Then he'll leave you alone." She said patting herself on the back at not only getting a head start on currency but also obtaining info about the settlement known as Megaton that she had read about in the Overseer's terminal just before she escaped. The woman seemed to think it over as she reached into her pocket and pulled out a pouch of Nuka-Cola bottle caps handing it over to her mumbling "I'm just tired of living like some Wasteland dog…:" She took the pouch stuffing it in the pocket of her vault suit thanking the woman and wishing her the best of luck as the woman turned and for whatever reason returned to her bed.

After leaving the woman's house she continued her journey towards the school as the building's sign came into view as she saw the name _Springvale Elementary. _She looked down gulping back the sadness that was returning as she could almost hear the agonizing screams of the small children that most likely perished here at the school on that fateful day when the bombs fell. She turned to look at the front entrance considering to enter through the door as she remembered that some dangerous people may have possibly taken refuge inside and she decided against entering through the front door and continued walking around the corner of the school next to the abandoned shell of the playground amidst the abandoned uranium-powered cars seeing a large gap on the building. She touched her pistol readying herself for anything as she began hearing bullets passing by her and dove down behind cover. _I can't believe some people are actually still here hiding out at this school! _She thought to herself as she momentarily rose to return fire at a savage dusted up man whose skin looked heavily tanned and was wearing makeshift armor. He seemed to wince as some of the rounds from her 10mm pistol hit their mark as she began running inwards looking for some better cover. She winced as she felt some bullets hit her shoulder and thigh as she turned and saw another man running up from what looked to be a makeshift barracks from the cracked open basement area of the school firing at her. She quickly dialed her target into the VATS system on her Pip Boy turning and shooting the man twice in the chest and once in the head as he collapsed broken like a toy. The man she had wounded upstairs seemed to lose sight of her as he began brutally taunting her with such a worse form of threats it'd make Butch Deloria shit himself and weep with fear. She grinned to herself confidently as she hid under where the stairs were while swiping some stray coffee cups from a nearby table. _That's right little wounded hyena…cmon down so I can put an end to your fucking miserable existence! _She deviously thought as she suddenly heard the sudden rush of footsteps behind her. As she turned that was when she felt the sharp sting of a police baton bash her head causing her to drop her pistol and fall over turning to see that a raider had snuck up on her and began to viciously beat her with his blunt weapon. She cried out in pain as she felt all sense of confidence drain from her body knowing shit was going south fast. For a brief moment the Raider stopped to pause noticing her fear and got down on top of her chuckling in psychotic delight. "Get off of me fucker!" She managed to snarl out struggling in the grip of the man. He grinned as he grabbed onto her vault suit and tore it open with his bare hands exposing the grey undershirt underneath "Heh you have some amazing tits there you slut! Let's see what happens when I rip off that shirt of yours!" Ruby could only shiver in disgust knowing what the man planned to do to her as he grabbed onto her large breasts groping them roughly as she desperately reached for her pistol trying not to give him the satisfaction of letting him see her blush.

As his calloused hands began wandering to the hems of her undershirt she felt her hand grasp onto the pistol. "Time to die you perverted fuck!" she yelled as she bashed the man's stomach with her elbow turning and repeatedly firing into his brain killing him instantly. She heard the wounded man begin to panic and run for the exit she came from as she turned and viciously gunned him down. _Ugghh…getting felt up was not on the list of shit I wanted to do today, ah well at least the bastard did me a favor at ripping this stupid skintight vault suit now I feel like I can finally breathe! _She thought as she cleaned their bodies of their equipment and armor and began walking out of the school deciding it was best to return at a later time. She turned to the right and walked past the abandoned motorcycle towards the other side of the building turning around and looking at the stranded vehicle after picking up its fuel tank and hand brake. _May as well mark where I left off here _She thought as she took out her pistol and fired into the motorcycle the 10mm rounds smashing into the mini uranium fuel cells causing the motorcycle to explode out of Ruby's range as she turned and saw a cable tower littered with toxic waste barrels around the bottom. She gritted her teeth in disgust as she saw the lonely med box among the barrels and decided to brave the radiation she knew she would be walking through. She opened the gate and stepped towards the med box and felt her skin starting to become warmer as she began hearing the vibrating crackle of the Geiger counter on her Pip Boy. "Nyuuuuu….Nyuuuu….." She squeaked in misfortune as she saw the rad counter going up from when she entered and looted the box and finally was able to leave. She coughed and wheezed knowing she just gave herself minor radiation sickness for a small amount of medical supplies as she began shambling her way towards Megaton praying that she wouldn't start losing skin or hair.


	3. Chapter 3: The sexy dead vault girl

**Well here we are at chapter 3! Yay! Some updates are coming up, newer characters are going to be introduced in later chapters and I will be keeping canon companions to a minimum so allow me to apologize to the female LWxCharon fans right now D: this is supposed to be a fanfic of one of my playthroughs of Fallout 3 with my own creative flavor added into it so for now enjoy chapter 3.**

"Crazy" Wolfgang had seen a lot of strange shit in the Wasteland while moving his caravan through the Capital Wasteland, comic book character rip offs in Canterbury Commons, small children in caves, and Super Mutants fucking women in Cat's Paw Magazines, but what he saw when he camped out at Megaton almost made him retire immediately right there. It was just another stop on his route through the Wasteland as him, his Brahmin Nessie and his soft-spoken mercenary guard Andy. It was then that he saw that he still could swear up and down till the day he died was the ghost of a vault dweller. Her skin was so immensely pale that it unnerved him at how she looked as if she were a walking dead woman. He couldn't help but notice her torn vault suit as the opening seemed to lure the eyes to the supple curvy goddess-like body the girl carried as well as her hypnotizing crimson eyes as she seemed to be struggling while carrying a heavy pack. _God I must be so fucking high on Jet again that I'm seeing sexy Ghosts. _He normally made it a habit not to sell chems as it was not only bad for his business but also for his recreational huff of Jet everywhere he went. He kept it in moderation though, had to look good for the customers after all, and after seeing this beautiful busty girl he silently promised himself that as soon as he left Megaton he was going to quit chems cold turkey and drown himself in the coldest bottle of booze he could buy. The girl was slowly shambling towards Megaton's entrance where she turned and saw him and seemed to smile with relief as she turned and walked towards him as he heard her squeak and groan from the stress of carrying the pack. _Goddamnit! As if the explosive body was enough those sounds she's making is driving me insane! Okay calm down Thaddeus just finish up this deal, go pay a visit with Nova and then get the fuck out as fast as possible. Simple _He thought as he gritted his teeth as he cracked off his best salesman trader smile "Well Hello there Miss you look lost however you're in luck for I am Crazy Wolfgang the finest seller of junk, the keeper of detritus, and the hunter of all the crap in the Wasteland that most people would deem useless." He said tossing his best sales pitch at her, fortunately for him he hadn't lost his charismatic touch as she seemed to smile with delighted interest. _Damn that smile is like a female Deathclaw in heat after my own heart. _He thought as he seemed to be taken aback by her honey-lipped smile. "You're a trader? Wow that's so cool! Do you get to see much of the Wasteland?" She said seeming to have the most excited face he had ever seen on a woman as he seemed to stumble in his thoughts but he smiled as if she were idolizing him and told her. "I have seen much of the Wasteland, though the town of Canterbury Commons is especially a place for traders to meet, the Mayor Roe there treats us really well." She squealed in delight as she looked down at the first-ever Pip Boy he had seen ever since he first became a Trader twenty years ago. She thanked him gladly as she took off her pack and upon opening it began immediately selling him…well junk, though they were in the cleanest condition he had ever seen them. _She MUST be from a vault if she's able to steal away this stuff that looks so clean! _And that was when she hugged him tightly and thanked him for his help for lightening her load ever-so slightly as he noticed the various folded up vault suits, security armor and helmets, and some assorted weapons and suits of Raider armor. _This girl is such a Pack Rat, I can't imagine the amount of caps I'd make selling the amount of crap this beautiful girl has. _He watched her walk away into Megaton as he mentally undressed her with his eyes and looked at the caps she paid him for buying his stimpacks. _Well Nova here I come. _He thought as he prepared to enter the town himself.

Ruby stepped into Megaton as she winced at the sound of the loud grinding of the rusted Pre-War airplane engine jury-rigged to function in opening the town's front gate gasping and wheezing from the long walk being over encumbered withall the gear she had in the heat. "Ugh…should not.. worn…a bra" She mumbled as she felt her tattered vault suit and undershirt underneath cling to her skin soaked in sweat. "Well I'll be damned... another newcomer! I haven't seen one of those blue suits in years, you're from that Vault! Vault 101!" She looked up at the person who walked up to her and spoke and saw a tall African American man in a leather duster that looked to be straight out of some of her favorite movies aside from the sheriffs stars on his 10-gallon hat and on the coat itself she noticed his coal-black beard and gasped. "Denzel Washington you survived! Can I have your autograph?! You were awesome in the Book of Eli!" the man stared at her in confusion as she stopped herself embarrassed at herself for blurting that out as he introduced himself as Lucas Simms. As she continued to look him over she noticed a well-kempt and very well maintained AKS-74u assault rifle on his back that nearly made her drool with envy. "I don't know why but I like you girl! I think we are going to get along juuust fine, you treat my people nice and we won't have any trouble." He said as he noticed her tattered vault suit and thought. _Though clearly she gave someone or something big trouble, and by the looks of it most likely those damn raiders at Springvale Elementary. _He thought as he silently sympathized with the new vault girl who introduced herself as Ruby which he could only guess was for the glittering red eyes that seemed to cut through him like a knife. She had politely smiled and nodded understanding the condition he gave her though gave off the eeriest of silences. After she asked him several questions about Megaton as soon as she heard about the bomb she gasped in shock. "Sheriff you need to allow me to disarm that bomb!" she cried her bright red eyes quivering in the shade as if she were about to start crying. Lucas seemed to sigh in relief as he tried to offer her caps as a reward. "No no no I could never accept such a reward not while everyone in this town's lives are at risk." She nodded to herself popping on the most serious face she could muster. This surprised Lucas a bit as he muttered "Well do me a favor then and... well... don't go accidentally blowing us all up okay?" and walked away thinking _God, I hope you aren't one of those silent psychotic types. _

Ruby looked down towards where the bomb stood. The exterior seemed to have a similar build to the Fat man and Little Boy atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in pre-war Japan back in 1945 so she smiled and walked towards the bomb noticing the small pool of radiation surrounding the bomb causing her to whimper to herself that she'd have to catch more rads to fix the damn thing. She could feel people staring at her as she heard a man next to her ranting as if he were giving a church sermon not paying her any mind as she listened to the Geiger counter of her Pip Boy start to crackle again counting up the radiation counter. She opened the panel on the bomb that allowed her to peek into its internal workings as she looked inside and saw the colored wires that were connected to the bomb; however to her dismay that was when she saw it. "Fuck!" she blurted out loud as she stared at the auto-lock module attached to the trigger for the bomb's detonation. _I'm gonna need some better tools than what I got if I'm gonna completely disarm this thing, once that's done I can start looking for info about Dad. _She thought as she closed the panel and walked out of the pool coughing and wheezing again from the radiation exposure and walked to the clinic.


	4. Chapter 4: Blood and evil businessmen

**Awesome 3 chapters in and people are already favoriting this :D thanks a bunch guys the more love you send me in these stories the better I can make this out to be if anyone ever has any ideas though or suggestions feel free to PM me whenever possible.**

Ruby decided to explore the town while she looked for info on her dad and for the tools she needed to disarm the nuke, however due to her ever increasingly annoying problem of her radiation sickness she decided to go to the clinic. She could almost feel the passing eyes of the settlers as they all gazed at the pretty insane vault girl who just willingly dove into a pool of radiation to look at the bomb. She shivered as she was sure some of those prying eyes were ones of lust as they gazed at her body as her vault suit seemed to clearly broadcast her divine curves. _Uggghh! I hate this stupid stupid vault suit! _She thought whimpering as she walked into Doc Church's clinic. She hadn't bothered to ask Simms of the Doctor's foul disposition, coming from a scientific family herself where her dad was the most popular guy in the whole vault she hadn't expected his snappy attitude. He groaned as he looked up at her from his desk and introduced himself as he stood up "I am Doc Church I run this clinic now I have 2 specific rules 1. Don't bother me and waste my time 2. I'll patch you up of any injuries or ailments but they better be fucking actual injuries; I'm a busy guy and have had enough problems with people always coming in here whimpering of a stupid cut and need a damn band-aid now what the hell can I do for you?" he said as he sneered. Ruby was a little frightened by the doctor's grumpy attitude as she stammered "I'm s-sick…! I got exposed to some r-radiation on my way here and n-now I've been having trouble breathing…!" Church sighed as he took out a syringe filled with an anti-radiation formula "Hold still" he grumbled and jabbed the needle into her arm as she began to feel her regular breathing pattern return and her ribs didn't feel like they were trying to pop through her chest like a chestburster from the Aliens movies she used to love watching so much.

She paid him the caps necessary for the treatment and walked outside looking around the town smiling at how friendly in greeting most of the settlers seemed. _I wonder what shoved the stick up the doctor's ass I mean fuck he was acting like a regular Doctor House! _She thought as she saw the entrance to Moriarity's Saloon and couldn't help but think of the old saloons she saw on those old western movie holodiscs she used to watch with Amata late at night. She then thought of Amata and how horrified she was after she had killed Officer Mack when Ruby was escaping the vault, Ruby had watched her interrogation and nearly beat the Overseer to death for allowing such a brutal interrogation to be conducted on her own child; she would have done it too if she hadn't seen the blank sorrowful stare in Amata's eyes.

_Alarms were blaring as Ruby had just finished off Security Chief Hannon smashing his arms until they were wobbly bits of noodles covered in blue and dripping blood as she had mercifully snapped his neck to free him of the crippling pain. She chuckled as her grin of pleasure turned into a horrific smile of delight. "No hard feelings eh Chief? And to think I was the Pip-boy programmer for you bastards and now u swallow Alphonse's bullshit? You and most of your buddies can burn in hell for what you did to some of my friends." She hissed having seen many of her childhood friends including the twins Mary and Tom Holden get viciously cut down for being outside of their quarters. She silently bashed the rest of the radroaches in her path and kept a hand on the 10mm pistol she looted from Sergeant Erickson after she had caught him attempting to rape Christine Kendall after going into a fit of authoratative insanity. She walked out into the hallway and that was when she heard Amata whimpering and trying to plead with her father the Overseer. "Oh fuck no fuck no he's actually interrogating his own flesh and blood!" She crouched down and snuck towards the window to the Security room almost walking on all fours as she did so and saw Alphonse Almodovar and Officer Mack standing over Amata who was sitting in the chair bruised with assorted cuts and bruises as well as her vault suit had been torn open to check for contraband exposing a peek onto her cleavage amonst her dark blue tank top. She saw the look of ferocious animalistic insanity in Mack's eyes as Ruby grappled her pistol silently snarling in disgust at the man's apparent sadistic hunger for her closest friend and someone she had a crush on ever since they began blossoming into their teenage years. "Be reasonable Amata Officer Mack and I arent enjoying this so please tell us where Ruby is so we can talk to her.." She could hear the venom in his voice as he said her name as Ruby prepared to rush through the door and execute them both when she heard a scream and rapid gunshots from inside. She rushed through the door preparing to avenge Amata and saw Officer Mack lying on the floor dead with 3 holes through his body as Alphonse gasped in shock. "Oh…my..God..! Amata what the fuck have you done?!" He yelled as his daughter fell to her knees crying hysterically. "GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM HER YOU SICK BASTARD!" She roared as she rushed towards him as he turned and saw her getting shoved aside as she pistol whipped him across the face and ran to Amata's side taking her into her arms softly comforting her. "shhh shhh its okay Amata I'm here I'm here" she crooned softly kissing her lips for comfort as Amata trembled staring in her eyes trembling as she held her father's pistol like it was her only charm left. Ruby continued comforting her stroking her hair "Calm down Amata just calm down this isn't you just calm down and give me the gun." She whispered as she slowly pulled the pistol away from her terrified hands and holstered it. "T..T-Thank you….I'll be fine…" she finally hiccuped amidst her tears as she slowly regained her composure and fled out of the room. Ruby turned and glared at Alphonse and walked over to him and before he could utter an accusation she shot him in the leg. "See how long you survive with that without a vault doctor you son of a bitch…" And walked out to check on Amata._

She stepped into the saloon where the sight she was greeted by was far from what the old western saloons were like as she looked around the room as she was greeted with a frightening yet upsetting sight that could only come out of the books she read about the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. She saw a man who looked as if his flesh was falling off in flakes banging on a radio and talking with a young attractive redhead dressed in a dark grey low cut buttoned up shirt purposely broadcasting her cleavage and tattered panty hoes with what looked to be custom boot-heels. _Hellooooo obligatory prostitute!_ She thought as she looked and saw the only person in the whole building who seemed to be wearing a fedora and a well-toned business suit. She hissed silently in disgust as she had seen enough movies and read enough books to know strange men in business suits and sunglasses were almost never good news. She walked over to him and sat next to him deciding to play coy and innocent. "Hello sir…umm did you call me over here?" She asked and his response made her want to kill him even more. "Why yes, just when I was about to give up hope; my name is Mr. Victor Burke…and I believe I have an offer for you that you couldn't possibly refuse that would highly benefit us both." Ruby restrained herself from shooting the man immediately as she listened to his offer.

**And I'm leaving it at a cliffhanger right there :D I'm glad you guys are enjoying the story of my Lone Wanderer and I should be able to get the next chapter up tomorrow afternoon!**


	5. Chapter 5: Conspiracy

_ I want to kill this man I want his blood splattered all over that fucking wall behind him! _Ruby thought angrily as she listened to Mr. Burke's insanely evil plot of detonating the live nuke at the center of town. She continued playing innocent as her "act" turned from innocently coy to tear-jerkingly scared and worried, "Can I warn everyone at least? Get them safely far away from the blast?" She asked gazing at him from between her bangs as her crimson eyes quivered in crocodile sadness. Mr. Burke chuckled as if she told a joke and snapped. "No! No! No one must know of this! You'd be doing everyone a huge favor trust me. You will also be paid very handsomely for your trouble." Ruby tried not to clench her fists until her palms bled as she continued playing her innocence act becoming more and more concerned. "This seems like a big job, what if I'm unable to do it?" Mr. Burke scoffed and looked at her as if she were an idiot, "Lack the aptitude you mean? It's not damned rocket science this fusion pulse charge will arm it automatically all you need to do is get to Tenpenny Tower where the detonator will be ready for you to use." Ruby had enough at that point; she slammed her hand down on the small coffee table as she yelled. "I won't help you! You are a sick man Mr. Burke! " She didn't care that people were staring at her as she stormed out of the saloon. Victor Burke didn't care, he saw the girl's potential and he knew that'd she'd be back to take him up on his offer. She just needed time to figure out for herself how worthless of a scum town this 'Megaton' was.

Ruby slammed the door to the Saloon behind her as her mind raced at how she was going to prevent Mr. Burke's plan to destroy the town. _I REALLY want to kill the guy but I must find a way to implicate him of the conspiracy some evidence and stuff that won't make me look about as much of a raving lunatic as that dumbass down in the pool of radiation. _Her thoughts were cut short as she felt a hard bump as she had realized that she accidentally ran into a young woman who looked to be about as young as she was only with tanned skin, blonde hair, green eyes and dressed in a black vest wrapped around a white undershirt down to her black pants that looked as if they had been modified to carry extra pockets as well as the 32 caliber pistol holstered on her waist. What scared her was how familiar she looked; _holy shit…if it weren't for the differences in looks I'd say she looks a lot like Amata!_ She thought and felt the warmth of an embarrassed blush come to her cheeks as she apologized for bumping into her. "Ah it's alright you seemed like you were in a rush to get out of there anyway…" and then she noticed Ruby's vault suit as she gazed at her body up and down and whistled interested in this new girl. "You must definitely be from out of town. What have you come here to do?" She asked tilting her head curiously. Ruby felt herself blush more heavily from the girl's up and down nodding stare who introduced herself as Lucy West. "Well I just came to town to see if there was anything to do here." She answered truthfully as she saw her raise one of her eyebrows. "Well I sure hope by 'do' you mean work otherwise you can go talk to Nova about that; if so then I do need someone to make a delivery, a courier you could say." Ruby felt herself heat up even more remembering the attractive redhead she saw back in the saloon guessing that she must be Nova as she quickly asked Lucy what she needed to be delivered as Lucy seemed to take out a folded envelope with a red crest sealed on it with the faded words of the _U.S. Postal Service _written on it as she told her what needed to be done and about her family over in the settlement of Arefu.

"How do I get there?" Ruby asked twiddling her thumbs trying to figure out of where the hell Arefu would be as Lucy answered her question. "Just follow the Potomac River to the dry bed and once you get to where the water dried up just follow the banks until you see a broken highway bridge and once you get there that's where Arefu is located." Ruby marked it down on the map of her pip-boy as she listened to Lucy talk. "Thank you so much for doing this…" she heard her say as Ruby looked up and see her blush as she looked away. "I'm pretty sure everything's fine at home and I'm just being paranoid but…I haven't heard from my family in a while and it's kind of got me a little worried." Ruby tried not to squeal at how cute Lucy looked when she seemed embarrassed as she reached out and patted her shoulder saying "Don't worry! I'm sure everything is fine and I'm sure your family misses you dearly!" she exclaimed smiling reassuringly making Lucy giggle as she hugged her whispering "Thank you so much, I've got faith you will find them." And let her go telling her who to talk to when she got there and walked away with a hopeful smile on her face.

Ruby smiled watching Lucy walk away as she thought about Mr. Burke's offer deciding that to implicate him of conspiracy to commit murder she'd have to "accept" his deal. She re-entered the saloon and walked over to him as she sat down holding out her hand. "You've got a deal Mr. Burke Megaton will burn in a sea of fire…" She emotionlessly said as he looked giddy with delight. "Splendid! Here is the Fusion Pulse Charge just attach it onto the bomb and then meet me at the top of Tenpenny Tower where we can delightfully watch the carnage from a safe distance." He said as he took out a large rectangular device with a dial and a small console of buttons on it giving it to her as she silently walked out and went to go look for the Sheriff.

Lucas Simms was more-or-less a lawman through and through. He had served several years with the outlaw mercenary company known as the Regulators who normally went around the wasteland taking jobs that specifically targeted the more "hostile" groups of people in the Wasteland who wished nothing more than to do harm on others. He looked up towards his partner Stockholm who kept a sharp eye on Springvale with his M21 sniper rifle on the lookout for raiders that may try to move on the town. Him and Stockholm were best friends in the Regulators for many years; however after Lucas's wife died from a radscorpion attack they both retired as Lucas took his son to Megaton where him, Stockholm and even Jericho an ex-raider also in retirement served as the town's law enforcement ever since. Strange things had been happening that day; first hearing about the nearby Vault opening up and then meeting the very crazy vault girl who came from it carrying an oversized pack of equipment that he was hoping she'd sell to Moira so they could fashion the armor and weapons into training new recruits to replace him when he passed on. He hadn't heard her run up the slope until she called out to him. "Sheriff…! Sheriff Simms! We got trouble!" She gasped still carrying the large pack of equipment she entered town with. "Whoa slow down and take a breath! What's wrong Ruby?" He asked seeing the look of alarm in her eyes as she gave him the news and took out the Fusion Pulse charge that Mr. Burke had given her. "Jesus! Give me that thing!" he said swiping it away from her hands as he stuffed it into his duster and unslung his rifle. "I knew I couldn't trust that bastard! Follow me kid your about to get a crash-course education of wasteland justice." He ran to Moriarity's Saloon busting through the door with Ruby following close behind him holding her 10mm pistol as he saw Mr. Burke still lounging in the chair. He walked over towards him and aimed his rifle at him as he said "Burke! Stand up now you're under arrest for conspiracy to detonating that bomb!" Mr. Burke looked up at him seeming bored as he said "Why Sheriff, I do believe I have no idea what you are talking about don't you have some disorderly loitering drunks you should be focusing on?" Ruby stood beside Lucas glaring at Mr. Burke her red eyes flaring with a fury that would give a deathclaw a moment of pause. "Don't fuck with me Burke! You want to destroy the entire town by detonating that nuke!" He yelled keeping his rifle trained on him as he simply stared up at him still carrying the bored expression on his face. "I believe someone is misleading you Sheriff now then I have very important business to attend to so if u please step aside." He said the tone of his voice carrying thick subtle venom in them. Lucas stood firm and defiant as he continued to order Mr. Burke to stand up "No can do Burke! You're coming with me to answer some questions and that's final!" Mr. Burke finally sighed in frustration as he said "Why must you dirty knuckle draggers always insist on doing things the hard way…?! Very well Sheriff…have it your way." He began to rise from the chair as Lucas Simms turned around to lead him out unaware of the fate that almost cost him his life.

Everything that happened next felt like a blur to Ruby and everyone else in the bar as she saw Mr. Burke reach into his coat and begin to pull out a suppressed 10mm pistol. Ruby reacted quickly as she rushed at him bashing her elbow into his chest as she pulled out her own pistol as she heard him groan from the sudden blow. She rapidly fired 4 consecutive shots as 2 of them entered his chest and the others entering his head as blood splattered onto the wall and chair.

Lucas Simms quickly turned around seeing Burke go down and seeing Ruby stand over his corpse with a scary grin of satisfaction on her face as he realized what had just happened. _My god why didn't I notice it sooner? I came so close to having a hole in my head and this girl just saved my life! _He thought as he thanked God that Ruby came into his town and patted her shoulder as she looted the suppressed pistol from the body. "My senses must be getting slow in my old age thanks for having my back there." She looked up at him and smiled beaming like a little girl who just successfully rode her first bike. "No problem! There's still more work to be done though do you know where I can get some tools to disarm the bomb?" She asked still beaming at her successful killing of an evil villain for planning to wipe out dozens of lives. "Gladly, Moira over at Craterside Supply sells all kinds of tools or if you want you can go see Walter up at the Water Treatment plant just up the ramp about borrowing some of his tools." He said as he looked at Danny Clarke and told him to run and go get Jericho for body cleanup. Ruby quickly thanked the Sheriff and walked out of the Saloon still beaming from her first heroic accomplishment in the Capital Wasteland.


	6. Chapter 6: Clean Water and Crazy Moira

Ruby turned towards the ramp that lead upwards to the Water Treatment Plant and the ramp that lead down to the Craterside Supply General Store. She concluded that if the town had a water treatment plant they were obviously having problems with the purifier due to the steam she saw coming out of one of the pipes when she first entered the town. _I wonder if they need some scrap metal to help patch up the purifier since stuff like that is bound to be about as hard to come by as food and medical supplies given how dangerous it is out there. _She thought as she walked up the ramp to the water treatment plant and saw an elderly African American man wearing a blue jumpsuit with a faded out RobCo logo on the back smoking a cigarette.

As she stepped close to him she felt the second-hand smoke slither into her mouth causing her to cough heavily catching the man's attention as Ruby held her ribs coughing and waving the smoke away. He seemed to shoot her a dirty grumpy old-man glare as he grumbled "Yeah? What is it?" Ruby immediately stood up straight wounded by his attitude. "I noticed you have a leak on one of your pipes around town do you need someone to fix it?" she said noticing that the old man looked directly at her eyes suddenly brightening up like a happy old grandpa. "Well as a matter of fact young lady I do! It's no secret around town that our purifier is on its last legs the way I figure it if I read the pressure right there's at least 3 leaks in the pipes around town if you can get those leaks fixed I'd really appreciate it and I'll be able to come up with a deal for you to keep the purifier running in the long-term." He explained as he smiled in relief that he wouldn't have to turn his attention away from the water purifier itself.

"I'll see what I can do sir, don't you worry I'll get this problem off your back." She said as she smiled relieved at the man's acceptance of her help. She suddenly remembered what she initially came to ask him for. "Oh umm also I came to ask if you had any extra tools I could borrow to disarm the bomb." The man's smile grew even brighter "You're going to disarm the bomb?! That's wonderful news!" and then he suddenly looked crestfallen "However I don't have any extra tools that you could use, I've just got all the necessities to work on the water purifier to keep the damn thing running." Ruby sighed as she mentally crossed the man off her list of possible candidates for carrying the right tools to disarm the bomb in the center of town. The old man caught her attention again as he asked "You seem like a very nice young lady, my name is Walter what's your name?" Ruby blinked staring at Walter for a second before giving him one of her brightest smiles "My name is Ruby, Ruby Hanson! I'm going to be living in this town from now on and I'm not going to let ANY assholes fuck it up!" She exclaimed as she turned and half-skipped her way down the ramp to go fix the leaks.

Walter Daniels watched the young girl leave as he smiled and puffed some smoke from his Marlboro cigarette thinking _I couldn't be happier that we have someone like her in this town. Just talking with her has already made me feel 40 years younger, back when I was just as hopeful as she is now. _

_ Once I know the town is safe then I'll go looking for dad. _Ruby thought as she continued on her way down the ramp over towards the pipe that was beside the slope that she entered the town in and laid down on the pipe as she took out her old tools that she carried back when she was the Pip Boy programmer in the vault with Stanley and tried working at the rusty screws as she examined the leak. She tried not to look at the passing settlers that were watching and ogling over the new sexy vault girl doing some maintenance on the rusted metal of their town. As she tried working the screws she realized that she couldn't figure out how to fix the leak and remembered that while she had been scavenging in the vault as she escaped she had stolen the Overseer's package of Mentats.

_Wow Alphonse, turns out you helped me more than you thought. _She chuckled at the irony as she slid off her pack and rolled onto her back in the dirt and rolled up the sleeves on her tattered vault suit and took out the small candy-like package of Mentats and opened it up gazing at the large shock-tart like chewable capsules inside. "This should last me long enough to fix all of the leaks." She mumbled as she took out two of the capsules and popped them into her mouth as she began to chew on them rolling back over already feeling the solution to fix the leaks drifting in her mind as an effect of the Mentats.

After fixing the leaks despite the trickiness of dealing with the third leak she thanked her athletic flexible agility as she returned to Walter this time finding him hard at work in the plant. "Hey Walter I was able to fix the leaks!" She exclaimed happily almost dancing as she walked towards him. He looked up at her smiling as he almost seemed to be jumping with joy as well "I noticed! The purifier's working at full capacity again!" As he said that they both heard the purifier kick on in a loud muffled hum as Ruby heard water rushing through the pipes.

Walter turned towards her and asked "Listen it may not be long until the water purifier craps out again so if you can bring me scrap metal I'll pay you some caps." Ruby smiled giggling happily as she took out the scrap metal she had snagged when she left the vault giving it to him as he gasped in shock. "My god I didn't think you'd have some on you already! Let me go count out your caps." He said as he walked over to his worktable putting the scrap metal down and took out 30 bottle caps giving them to her as she hopped in place with excitement. "Thank you so much! I'll be on the lookout for more scrap metal!" and hugged him tightly running out leaving a blushing old man reminiscing about his youth.

Ruby decided to go for the second option she had in mind as she traversed the rusted metal ramp down to the Craterside Supply General Store and stepped inside as she saw a teddy bear flying at her and hitting her chest knocking her on her ass and heard the panicked voice of a woman "Oh crap! Oh crap! I'm so sorry!" the woman said running over to Ruby helping her up. "You must be Moira Brown" Ruby grumbled as she patted her chest coughing from the teddy bear suddenly knocking the wind out of her.

Moira quickly cleaned up her smoked up mess from the Rock-It-Launcher overheating as she lifted up her goggles gazing at Ruby's glittering red eyes and abnormally pale skin. _How fascinating! That must be the new stray from the vault yet I don't even see any sign of even so much as a tan on her yet it's obvious she's been sweating profusely from that large pack she's carrying._ As Moira gazed at the Vault Dweller escapee she noticed how rather "blessed" she was on her chest and blushed politely looking away feeling a twinge of jealousy as she noticed that the mercenary bodyguard she hired Steve was staring at Ruby's chest amazed. Ruby seemed to detect this and shot an intense glare at him as he quickly looked away as if he were examining the bottle cap mine that Moira had developed on her work bench.

After she had quickly sold most of the items that she had scavenged from the vault and in Springvale Moira asked "Hey I'm writing a book about how to survive in the Wasteland it's a dangerous place you know! If people will be able to read this they'll be able to know all the different dangers, where to find supplies, and ultimately find the essential information to benefit humanity!" Ruby quickly perked up from glaring at the guy off in the corner who had been staring at her cleavage as she almost hugged Moira in excitement. "That sounds so cool! What will I need to do?! How will I be paid?" She asked almost rambling from joy. Moira smiled happy that someone had finally volunteered to help write her book. "Well I'll pay you with various things. I'll give you caps, some supplies, and food and while you're out I'll dig through some of my junk to see if I can find any special rewards for you!"

Ruby was excited _I get to be a co-author in helping write a book about how to survive a nuclear wasteland! This is going to be so awesome! _She thought as she noticed an armored vault 101 suit hanging on a rack behind the counter. "Hey while you're telling me what needs to be done where did you get that vault suit?" Moira turned around and saw where she was looking and chuckled "Ah that old thing? A girl who came running into town 10 years ago asked me to armor it up for her, poor dear was so scared. Unfortunately she never came to pick it up she probably died out there." She said and began explaining what was needed for the first chapter of the book.

Ruby listened closely and shivered slightly unnerved at how overly chipper Moira sounded talking about a girl from her Vault who had escaped and died as another casualty to the Capital Wasteland. _So Dad and I haven't been the only ones…I really can't blame anybody for wanting to get away from Alphonse Almodovar of all people. _She thought and decided and what she could do first. "Hey gathering food and medicine doesn't sound too hard where do I need to go?" she asked seeing Moira smile again behaving overly cheery. "Ah well you can never be too sure the closest place to look is at the Super Duper Mart Grocery store just go in, see if there's any food or medicine around and if its empty then just come back alive okay?" She said with a hint of somewhat genuine concern for Ruby's safety. Ruby smiled as Moira gave her the vault suit and walked outside traveling out of town to go grocery shopping. Little did she know, that the shopping was going to be competitive.

**Okay I suppose I should explain myself about some things I'm aware for those of you who read the first chapter that I used too many anime and manga references now I'm having Ruby make these specific references mainly for comedy purposes I will use stuff from the comics that are in the game however the reason why I added that in was because of the fact that there are virtually only 2 comics in the game which are Grognak the Barbarian and Tales of a Jerky Junktown vendor with the rest of the skill books mainly being like manuals or instructional books which normally I can understand. Thank you guys for your suggestions so far and I will try to limit the references as much as possible. Next few chapters will be out next week. **


	7. Chapter 7: Bloody Grocery shopping

Ruby walked along the dry dead sands of the Capital Wasteland gazing around at the dead corpses of what used to be trees and the ruined buildings that used to be active and lively with real people inside them. Ruby always was one to get easily distracted and taken in by new sights as she fought the urge to travel towards the various destroyed structures she saw as she journeyed towards the Super Duper Mart. She was thoroughly convinced that it couldn't be the store's real title as she saw the back of the building up ahead and crouched down sneaking up behind it looting through a couple of dumpsters and found some of the old Pre-War American dollars. _Shocking that these actually survived the fires. _She thought as she gazed at the faded pictures of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Hamilton on the bills and stuffed them in her backpack sneaking around the corner towards the front where she suddenly heard sounds of gunshots and an explosion.

As she swung around to the front she peeked around the corner and saw the derelict parking lot while noticing 3 wounded raiders walking back towards the front of the store to continue guarding it. She quickly jumped out of her hiding place and shot the raiders each in the head as they all fell. Ruby stood up and noticed some corpses over by the derelict cars as she looted the three raiders and realized that they were dead raiders. "Huh, I wonder what horrible monster you fucktards were fighting…" She mumbled and walked to the corner of the parking lot finding more dead raiders and the wreckage of the same kind of strange robot she had seen back in Springvale.

Ruby couldn't believe what she saw as she sifted through the eyebot's wreckage grabbing scrap metal from it and noticed some small energy cells located inside. She cracked off her signature psychopath grin and cackled laughing uncontrollably. "Oh my god! This little thing took out 4 raiders!? That is absolutely hilarious!" she said and kicked one of the corpses snarling "you seeing this from hell?! I hope you are because this means you guys are either dumb or cant fight for SHIT!"

Ruby suddenly had an idea pop into her head and noticed the large plant pots that contained the bushes for decorations on the store. _Right there looks like a good spot. _And started dragging the gored up corpses including their broken off limbs towards one of the pots and stripped each of the bodies as she contemplated on whether or not to casterate them and set their genitals up for more decoration but decided that what she was going for was best. After piling up the corpses into a fine meat pile she found the decapitated head of one of the raiders and picked it up. "Hmmm should I be Shakespeare about this? Or Edgar Allen Poe?" she said to herself as she examined the head and noticed the eyes were still wide open as if eternally horrified at its own death. Ruby grinned and looked towards the road knowing it would have the fear factor effect she was thinking of and placed the head down on the edge of the pot specifically placing it so the eyes were facing the road.

"This is a message to all Raiders of the Capital Wasteland if you fuck with Ruby Hanson of Vault 101 THIS is what will fucking happen to you!" She shouted to no one in particular as she mumbled "Scavengers are welcome to come clean the place out however." And giggled as she turned and saw the sign actually saying _Super Duper Mart_. She immediately facepalmed but laughed nonetheless. "Seriously?! That's the name of this place?! That is so fucking stupid its silly!"

After looting the 2 nuka-cola vending machines outfront curiously peering at the Nuka-Cola Quantum she found curious at how it tasted she stuffed them in her backpack and entered the store. _"_Entering psycho ninja assassin mode….NOW" She whispered as she saw some raiders patrolling the top of the shelves and began to systematically start looting the cash registers quietly.

Her subtle robbery of the cash registers went unnoticed as she noticed a side counter where the intercom was located and vaulted over the counter looting all the ammo she could find. She resisted her urge to squeal from her gun nuttiness when she noticed the laser pistol looking lonely on the counter and quickly swiped it for her collection. She also noticed the various bottles of liquor and the refrigerator against the wall and systematically looted them all.

"Okay that's the food now I just gotta find Medicine…" She whispered and remembered from her study of some of the Pre-War schematics of some of the grocery stores of DC back in the vault that the medicine was normally kept at the back end of the building. _Huh, just like a Walgreens. _She thought as she almost giggled giddy with joy that she'd have to kill all of the raiders in the store to get to that room.

As she exited the room she saw a female raider walking towards the front of the store holding one of the sexiest 308 caliber hunting rifles she had ever seen and a military combat knife at her belt. Ruby blushed with happiness as if the raider were her girlfriend and began to sneak up behind her as she took out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter and began to smoke. She immediately grabbed her from behind as she whispered in her most seductive tone. "Why thank you babe you got me a gift too bad though I didn't get you one though I am certified as a chiropractor…" Before the poor girl could react Ruby snapped her neck and caught her as she fell to the ground gently setting her down and began looting her body for ammo as she slung the hunting rifle over her shoulder and gazed at her combat knife. _Hmmm dirty and a bit damaged but with a little cleaning and a little elbow grease it'll be the perfect knife for my needs. _She thought as she twirled the knife in her hand giggling maniacally.

The raiders of the Dust Tribe never knew what hit them as Ruby went on a silent bloody rampage systematically hunting them down one by one and slitting their throats or repeatedly stabbing them in the back or chest as the last thing each of them heard was her animal-like purr of ecstasy as she reveled in their suffering and stuffed their stripped naked bodies within the old refrigerated meat tubs.

When the deed was finally done Ruby examined the blood that had splattered onto her vault suit and silently vowed to find some better armor and better clothes that didn't hug her slender frame so tightly. After looting the majority of the valuable items in the store including the chems that the raiders had been carrying she walked towards the locked door that lead to where the medicine should have been stored feeling cocky and like she was on top of the world she not only unlocked and opened the door using a key that one of the raiders had been carrying; she purposefully hacked into the terminal next to it giggling at her love for tech and her skill with computers.

When Ruby entered the back room she was greeted by a treasure trove of ammo, medicine, and various metal treasures as well as the small crates full of Nuka-Cola and 2 Quantums. _Of course I could seriously do without the Protectron in the stasis chamber in here but I can see why hes there. _She thought as she quickly began stuffing all that was valuable in her pack nearly drooling over the Mini-Nuke sitting lonely on the table.

She checked the medicine box and gathered what was inside and turned to walk out; however, she had heard the footsteps too late as the remnants of the Dust Tribe had returned from patrol and noticed their comrades outside and inside stripped naked and stuffed away. She was unable to react quickly enough as the leader of the tribe Kingclaw bashed her head with the baseball bat which knocked her unconcious.


	8. Chapter 8: Cookout Massacre

**Warning: This chapter contains slight unfortunate nuclear wasteland occurrences of rape so there is slight smut in this if you are squeemish to such things and/or underage either skim quickly through the first part of this chapter or go back to the last chapter and skip ahead. You have been warned. **

Ruby woke up to find herself in the most compromising of situations; the raiders had captured her,stripped her of her clothes and her gear, and they had already sexually assaulted her a couple of times while she was unconcious. She silently sobbed at her ripped away innocence as she tugged at the ropes they had tied up her arms with between the some racks in the storage room. Although she soon realized that her luck hadn't run out completely as she noticed that her armored vault suit and her gear had been stashed in the far corner near the table where the ammo boxes were. She also noticed that the racks weren't as stable as they looked and pulled on one of her ropes slightly watching it wobble. _Good Good at least I'm not completely fucked. _She thought and suddenly heard footsteps and a sleazy sounding chuckle as she turned and saw the leader of the Dust Tribe Kingclaw grinning at her seeing that she was awake.

That was when Ruby realized that despite her newfound solution she was still naked and her massive G-cup sized breasts as well as her supple curvy body were still on display. "Ahh so our newest little psychopathic whore is awake. Good Good I wanted you to be awake while I had some more fun with you before I hand you off to some of my other boys and girls." He said chuckling as he dropped his cigarette stomping out the ashes and walked towards her gazing at her immensely pale body. Ruby shivered in disgust as he began caressing her curves mumbling about how him and the rest of the tribe were contemplating sending her off to some place called Paradise Falls to sell her for some caps. "Heh you missed the first two times I pounded you good you were moaning and screaming like you wanted it all night." He said as he blew smoke in her face and grabbed her breasts roughly groping them and continued. "Thankfully you red-eyed hot girlie Kingclaw of the Dust Tribe am happy to oblige." He said and grabbed her ass lifting her up; Ruby quickly realized he was aiming for her abused womanhood and got an idea as she spread her legs playing along with the act. "Ahh eager aren't you? Well judging how you cut up our boys earlier and how brutally you treated em I just may recruit you after I'm done." He said and shoved his head against her womanhood.

Ruby whimpered and squirmed as she felt his tongue roughly licking inside her and quickly trying not to moan as she wrapped her legs around his head and snapped his neck. She gasped breathing heavily as she dropped him her body feeling hot all over as she quickly put her plan into action yanking on the ropes as hard as she could knocking over one of the racks. The sudden rush tugged on the length of the rope as she heard a snap in her arm feeling the bone break causing her to cry out in agony. She then turned towards the rope on her other arm and began biting into it tasting the dryness of the dirt that had glittered the rope. She continued biting hard and pulled hearing the rope snap letting her down onto the floor.

She then turned and quickly untied the other rope from her broken arm gently sliding it free hearing loud chatter outside as she snuck over to where her equipment was placed and grabbed her clothes first getting dressed. She then took out a stimpak and grabbed onto her broken arm biting into a piece of wood as she snapped the arm back into place and jammed the stimpak into it mending the break allowing the arm to be usable again.

She checked her weapons seeing that those hadn't been taken away as well and snuck outside grasping her combat knife and her 10mm pistol tightly in her hands smiling widely excited about her upcoming revenge. She peeked out from behind the counter seeing that what was left of the Dust Tribe had somehow gotten a Pre-War grill working and were cooking Brahmin Steaks chatting amongst each other and laughing as they drank some beer and whiskey. _They won't even see me coming. _She thought and giggled as she rose from the counter and quickly fired as she vaulted from her fireplace running at them laughing like mad as most of the raiders fell quickly as the 10mm rounds ripped through their fabric and jury-rigged makeshift armor. After she heard the clicking of her pistol needing to reload she quickly holstered it and began slashing the other Raiders with her combat knife continuing to laugh maniacally as blood splattered all over the floor and the shelves.

After the dust settled Ruby looked around as she looted their corpses drinking some of the purified water she had stolen from the vault and heard whimpering and sounds of shuffling. She turned and saw that a female Raider had survived her psychotic rampage and was trying to crawl to safety. She followed after the girl seeing that her leg and back were bleeding, as she reloaded her pistol hearing the girl cry out "Oh god no please don't kill me I'll do anything! You can sell me to Paradise falls! I'll be your girlfriend forever just don't fucking kill me!" She coldly stared down at the girl as she pointed her pistol at the girl's head and saw that the girl could have been barely 17 years old. "I was forced to become a Raider! They are holding my sister prisoner at Evergreen Mills! He said that if I didn't do what Kingclaw ordered me to do he'd rape and kill her! Please you have to help me!"

_Ugghh why do the innocent ones always have to be so hot?! _Ruby groaned as she lowered the pistol and asked. "What's your name? Talk slowly before you bleed out." The girl stared up at Ruby in astonishment and thanked her old tribal god Akakti for her good fortune. "Max…though everyone calls me Maxine." She said gasping between breaths.

Ruby cursed her overwhelming need to help people as she helped Maxine rise up slowly into a sitting position as Maxine continued to explain her situation. "Both your wounds went through so hold still." She grumbled and jabbed a stimpak onto each of Maxine's wounds as they slowly healed up. She then helped Maxine to her feet as they two girls walked over towards the grill and ate cooked brahmin steaks together. Maxine told her that her and her sister were from a settlement called Averton that had been burned down by Raiders over in a ruined city called Baltimore and they fled to the Capital Wasteland where they were captured by the Raiders of the Reaper Tribe over in Evergreen Mills lead by a man known as Crag. _She seems to be quite a smart girl for a Raider. _Ruby thought as she drank a bottle of some Nuka-Cola and stuffed the cap into her pouch of caps. She picked up one of the revolvers that one of the raiders had been holding and put it into Maxine's hand. "I want you to go back to tell your boss Crag that the Dust Tribe here was wiped out by the Ghost of the Wasteland and that you barely got away with your life got it? I'll be sure to come rescue you and your sister whenever I can alright?" Maxine stared at her and the revolver as she asked. "How are you so sure he'll believe that? The guy is a damn monster!"

Ruby cracked off her signature psychotic grin and said "Oooohh he'll believe it, after all tribals can be extremely superstitious about things like that right?" Maxine thought for a moment and nodded "Good point…I'll hold you to that promise then!" and ran out of the store.

Ruby sat for what felt like days as a couple of hours passed and then she walked outside as well and began her trek back to Megaton.


	9. Chapter 9: New Home and a Lie

Ruby stormed into Moira's shop ignoring the wetness from her loins when she was raped and nearly collapsed to the floor from exhaustion. Moira caught her from falling obviously ignoring the fact that she had been gone longer than the normal trip would have taken "Soooo how was the shopping?" She said with an irritatingly cheerful tone. Ruby sat down in a chair that Moira's mercenary bodyguard pulled up for her obviously more concerned about her condition than Moira was. Ruby took out a bottle of purified water and guzzled down the contents and coughed gasping between breaths as if she were trying to get a taste out of her mouth. "Its really hard to talk my way past all the people shooting at me you know." She said stuffing the empty bottle back in her pack to refill later. Moira beamed and giggled excitedly as she grabbed a clipboard that miraculously still contained clean empty paper on it and quickly began taking notes. Ruby caressed her long dark bangs back away from her face and looked at her with glittering red eyes "The raiders there had set up a base of operations at a tactical position along the Potomac River to harrass and ambush passing brahmin caravans and were also using the building to store their equipment."

Ruby continued to explain what had happened and what the Raiders had been doing there for 3 hours until finally Moira was able to get enough notes. "Ahh so your saying the Raiders were not only using it as a headquarters but to store looted equipment as well? Sounds like many different caravaneers will have you to thank for clearing that road!" She said in a irritatingly high pitched tone. "Anyway good work! Here's some food I was able to buy from a trader that came by town oh! And as a bonus I'll give this food sanitizer and the tools you asked for okay? Just as thanks for doing the Wasteland a favor."

Ruby nearly shot through the roof with excitement when she received the reward, she rose up out of the chair ramming into Moira giving her a full french kiss on the lips not even caring that her sleazy bodyguard was staring jaw agape that this was happening in front of him. She then quickly ran out towards the bomb leaving behind a horribly dazed and confused Moira Brown trying to figure out what had just transpired.

She quickly dropped her pack outside the pull of radiation not wanting her gear to get contaminated and opened up the panel of the nuke taking out what could have easily been the horrific little brother to the Jaws of Life metal cutters that Pre-War firemen used to use and slowly pulled out the auto-lock that was connected to the detonator tossing it out as it landed outside of the pool next to her pack. _I'll keep it as a little memento. _She thought as she plugged at the colored wires and began sweating as she tried to remember which wire was always the one connected to the trigger to detonate the warhead.

She could hear Simms walking up behind her and watching from outside the pool and knew he had his fingers crossed as much as she was as she reached for the blue wire and slowly cut it as a clicking sound was heard inside the bomb causing her to hold her breath in anticipation hoping she didn't accidentally blow herself and an entire town of innocent people to bits.

_15 minutes later…_

"I'll be damned you did it!" Lucas said clapping Ruby on the shoulder in congrats as he stubbornly forced back his tears of happiness and relief. _Tonight I get to go home and have Brahmin Steak and Iguana on a stick with my son thanks to this girl. _He thought as he also promised to take Harden out hunting one of these days, he knew Ruby could handle the small load afterall he had seen the looks of almost everyone in Moriarity's Saloon after she had accurately and brutally effectively killed Mr. Burke and saved his own life from being shot in the back. _No one in this town will fuck with this girl she'd even give Jericho a moment of pause. _He thought as he happily gave her the deed to the empty gigantic house up at the corner from the entrance praising her for asking to disarm the bomb without even getting paid.

Ruby was happy to have saved the town as her and Simms had parted ways and she decided it was finally time to talk to Moriarity himself up at the saloon. She had put it off long enough as she had been itching to talk with the man ever since she first came to town.

Colin Moriarity was as much of an information broker as he was a drunk, a bar owner, pimp, and slave owner. He thoroughly didn't believe in using those explosive collars that those slavers at Paradise Falls seem to have the biggest boners for. As his dear ol' dad used to say before he was shot in the head by a Super Mutant in the DC ruins _Why collar em and treat the poor bastards like dogs when you can just as easily drain em of their caps and keep control over em with good ol fashioned Irish muscle and relentlessly charging em rent?_ He sighed happily at the memories as he counted the caps the bar had made today from both Nova's "guests" and Gob's patrons. Part of him sincercely wished he had shot Silver in the back when she left for the debt she had owed him as being his second whore. _Ah well there's no shortage of sexy women in the Wasteland and I can always replace her. _He thought as he typed the record of the caps into his terminal. He had heard about the new vault girl in town and how she had gained quite the reputation in just a whole day. He had seen her when she had first entered his bar and damn did she have an explosive body! He had already internally picked her as his prime canididate to be his new whore in the event Nova became swamped with customers and needed someone else to pick up the slack. Something about her though seemed off, it kept bugging him of how familiar she looked and seemed to him, especially after the cold and effective slaughter she gave that weirdo in the suit and tie. _She looked like an entirely different person then, hell from the way she moved its like she vanished and then reappeared like a ghost with how fast she was! Probably should also consider her and those gigantic tits of hers to be the top security guard for the saloon when shit hits the fan. _It was almost closing time for the bar as he heard the last of the customers leaving to go home. He could still hear the big queen sized bed upstairs still creaking amidst Nova's joyful moaning as she had sex with her latest customer. The guy was offering some big caps to get laid so Moriarity didn't complain so long as he didn't fuck his best whore to death. Suddenly he heard Gob talking outside with what sounded like the very vault girl he was thinking of.

Ruby wandered into the bar seeing the ghoul from before cleaning some glasses with a dish rag. He quickly put down the glass as he saw her walk towards the bar. "My name's Gob what can I getcha?" He asked in his raspy immensely dry tone. Ruby stared at him feeling as if she was gonna cry feeling sorry for the poor man as she couldn't imagine the horrible unimaginable pain and suffering he must have gone through from the intense exposure to radiation he received from the blast of the bombs. She sniffled as she wiped some tears away from her eyes brushing back her raven-black bangs. Gob stared at her confused for a second and realized this must be the first time she has ever really seen a ghoul in person as he remembered that this girl came from a vault. "Hey miss, are you alright?" He asked politely feeling slightly awkward as this was the first time a human ever actually showed tears of sadness in front of him. Ruby quickly wiped her eyes and shook her head as she looked at him with her alluring glittering red eyes as they still formed some tears as she sniffled. "Let me think about that for a second my good man!" She said as she forced back her tears trying to put on a brave front.

This surprised Gob even more as he asked. "You're not gonna yell at me? Beat me? Not even berate me a little bit? Seriously?" Ruby quickly shook her head as she told him. "Wouldn't dream of it my friend if you were in the military you'd deserve a medal for all the pain and other kinds of shit you must have gone through throughout the past 200 years." Gob held back his own tears now remembering his youthful years as an eager Private in the U.S. Army back then and how frightened he was when he first saw the bombs falling. He'd always been known back then as "Turkey" in his unit for how everytime there was an attack or an alarm he'd always be the first to gobble loud enough for people to hear and run to safety. If the stupid shelter he had evacuated the closest survivors he found hadn't malfunctioned causing radiation to leak in he wouldn't be in the shitty situation with Moriarity he was in now. _Gretta…if only you were here to hear this. _He thought as he said as he decided not to tell the new girl of his former military career. "Well as thanks for brightening up my night smoothskin you get a discount just as a secret between the two of us." Ruby smiled and looked around the bar as she told him. "Thanks Gob I have a feeling I'll be coming by here a lot. Hey umm if its not too much trouble can I speak with your boss Moriarity?" Gob froze and hesitated slightly as he turned towards where Colin's office was. "Hey boss! Someone wants to see you!" and sure enough out came the man himself. "What the fuck is it now Gob I'm really-" and stopped mid tangent seeing the vault girl again and seeing that look in her eyes, the same look that James Hanson himself had when he came through to stay in his saloon with no one but his little infant daughter to accompany him all those years ago, the same look he carried when he came back through his bar 2 days ago and asked for directions to Three Dog. "My God…" was all he could say as he walked towards her eyes wide in amazement. "Its you, the little lass who came with James with nary a tit to suckle, let me say from the bottom of me big big Irish heart that I am truly sorry for what happened to your mum." Ruby stared at him in confusion obviously not expecting him to know about her. _Ooohh you poor girl saved the town but still doesn't know shit about the Wasteland._

_6 hours later…_

Ruby out of the saloon as she slammed the door behind her resisting the urge to shoot Moriarity on the massive revelation he had told her. _I was never born in the Vault?! Dad's been lying to me all these years!_ She thought snarling in anger as she entered her new home too angry to admire its enormous amount of space and went up and found the master bedroom where she sat down bringing up her Pip-Boy looking at the note her dad left with Jonas to give her just before he escaped. She clicked play on the recording and as she listened to her dad's voice she hung her head low and cried for the first time since she left Vault 101.


	10. Chapter 10: Worst Swimming hole part 1

The next morning Ruby walked out to Moira's store to continue to see what else she needed done for the first chapter for her Wasteland Survival Guide, along the way she felt a soft bump as she stumbled backwards almost falling over. She turned to look and see who ran into her and saw a little girl who could have been barely 9-10 years old with short dark brown hair, a white vest, pink shirt and blue skirt with tennis shoes rubbing her head from bumping into her chest. Ruby gasped as she thought _Oh my god it's a cute loli! I want to hug her now! _She helped her up asking if she was hurt and then introduced herself. "No it's alright lady I'm fine I'm Maggie, you're the red eyed lady that stopped the bomb and that mean man from blowing us up right?" She asked her face looking flustered from slamming into Ruby's enormous breasts. Ruby couldn't help but blush and scratch her head in embarrassment at her new found local fame as she replied. "Yeah that's me Ruby Hanson" she chuckled still embarrassed and her eyes widened when Maggie took out a couple of grenades and held them out to her. "Billy and I wanted to give you these as a thank you for saving us." Maggie said as she shyly tried hiding her face.

Ruby smiled happily touched that they did this for her; Billy was the local trader of Megaton who was always the one to go negotiate with the passing caravans. Ruby had met Billy the first day she walked into Moriarity's Saloon when she first came to Megaton and already liked him when she first saw him she just couldn't place if it was for his friendly attitude or his heroic nobility in adopting Maggie. "Well…" Ruby began as she patted her head. "You go tell Billy that I said you're welcome and to keep up the good work at being a good daddy." Maggie seemed to happily squeak in response and ran off most likely back to Billy's home. Ruby had always loved indulging the child inside her heart.

When she entered Moira's store the news on her next task that she chose was for lack of a better word "insane". "You want me to do WHAT?!" Ruby screamed her jaw agape in appalled horror. "Yep you heard me I need you to get irradiated enough so I can study its affects, no worries though I'll be sure to fix you up with an anti-rad cure I cooked up so please don't die okay?" Moira exclaimed in her usual happy-joy joy tone. Ruby stormed out of the store slamming the door thinking _this book better be a fucking good one I'm putting my ass on the line here! _She walked out of town and began her trek towards the Potomac River.

**So sorry for this short one guys I'll try continuing this and my Blue Heaven's Feel story as much as possible as soon as I can get Microsoft Word or any program compatible for this website. Anyway tell me what you guys think so far I'm not exactly a professional writer but as such feel free to share your thoughts, suggestions and feelings about the story and what you guys think of Ruby. Thank you guys so much for the support you have given so far I really appreciate this. **


	11. Chapter 11:Worst Swimming Hole part 2

**Hey guys! I'm sorry for the really long wait after weeks after starting my job again I looked through my account and realized that Microsoft Office Word wasn't the only supported program so here's the long awaited continuation of Ruby Hanson the Wasteland Ghost! ^^**

**Update: I have recently begun using mods for my fallout 3 game to help with my research for the story including some quest mods and companion mods and therefore will get to them eventually so anyone who has used these mods or if the mod makers themselves are reading this then I'd love to hear your guys feedback on my perspectives of them. **

It was going into the dead of night when Ruby finally found the prime swimming hole she felt was private enough from any patrolling raiders. The only problem was as she crept up behind a derelict car and gazed down at the small beach she saw large humanoid-crab like creatures nestled along it. She took out her hunting rifle and looked down the sight aiming at the beasts assuming that their backs were armored she waited until the first one turned around facing her and fired a bullet into its chest. The results were not what she expected, she heard the bullet impact into its flesh but it only gave away her position to her target and the other monsters nestled amongst the clusters of eggs. "Shit! Its front is armored too!" and continued firing at them as they each began turning and charging towards her. As one finally made it past her barrage of bullets from her hunting rifle she quickly fired up into the small space where its face lay causing the unarmored area to burst with its blood and flesh and collapse to the ground as if it were a broken toy.

Ruby gasped with glee and continued firing into the faces of the other creatures as she cried out "YES! Not so tough when your faces don't have any armor huh u fuckers!" The exchange only lasted 15 minutes as the last of the creatures fell back dead and Ruby began to calm down from her killing-fueled euphoria. "Fuck yeah that was scary..!" As she remembered the dark and disgusting fates her female protagonists met at the tentacles or claws of monstrous creatures in the dirty hentai manga books she'd read when Amata was busy with her dad.

She gazed out at the water and took a moment to marvel at how hauntingly beautiful the Potomac River looked reflected by the moonlight. "Must have been pretty romantic to come out here before the War…" She mumbled as she rested her rifle down on a rock and began to unbuckle the armor belts that held the armor on her vault suit together and unzip the suit itself. She stood there naked for a moment with nothing but her Pip Boy and the glove that came with it on one arm and looked around cautiously. _God I haven't felt this paranoid since traveling through the lower levels of the vault at night. _She thought as she ran towards the edge of the shore feeling no worry of her divine albino-like body being seen by anyone and dove into the water and instantly regretted it feeling the chill of the water and the burn of the radiation settling onto her skin.

Ruby checked her Geiger Counter on her Pip Boy and read the measurement of radiation she currently had on her body. "Okay 80 rads? Fuck I'm gonna be here for a while…" She mumbled as she swam around in the water being sure to stay within sight of where she left her gear and clothes. As she waded through the water she came upon a small broken section of a bridge and found various bottles of Nuka cola floating there some still full including a Quantum. Ruby sighed with relief thinking that she'd at least have some soda when she was done with her naughty skinny dipping expedition.

As an hour past Ruby was only at 220 rads on her Pip Boy, she knew that drinking the water would be risky but she believed that the sooner she hit 600 rads the sooner she could get out of the water and cough and wheeze her way back to Megaton. She soon smiled and began to relax floating on top of the water. _Thank goodness for those swimming classes I took back at the vault. _She thought and soon fell into a daze of going into a trip down memory lane.

"_Okay kids! Today your going to learn how to brave a flood in the event our humble abode gets flooded by an underground lake! We can't be too sure about what our diggers are going to find in those caves!" Drill Instructor Bennett barked as he marched among the batch of boys and girls in front of him clad in their swimsuits. A 14 year old Ruby Hanson trembled trying to stand away from the crowd shyly hugging herself amidst the blue Vault-Tec issue 2-piece swimsuit in which the top seemed to struggle at guarding her then-large developing breasts. She had been aware that Butch and his goons had been eyeballing her and despite her threats she imagined them mentally undressing her and deflowering her in the event she was alone. As she shivered in disgust remembering hearing a rumor about Susie Mack and Mary Holden falling within their spell of "groupies" She was sure the part about Mary was bullshit because she had seen how Mary would always shoot down Wally Mack's advances. As she felt their eyes size her up once more she felt a soft tender hand on her shoulder and turned and saw her closest friend Amata sporting a gorgeous Vault-Tec one-piece swimsuit causing Ruby to blush and felt her body start to become warm. Amata smiled as she comforted Ruby, "Hey if your scared of swimming don't worry just stick close to me I won't let you drown." The dirty thoughts that ran through Ruby's head at the mention of being close to Amata in the water made her body become hot. She didn't really have the heart to explain to her what she was really scared of she was just delighted grasping Amata's hand as they all began getting into the water._

Ruby quickly awoke with a moan of ecstasy and realized her Pip Boy was ringing reading that she was at 610 rads. She felt hot all over and looked down quickly taking her hand from between her legs realizing she had fallen asleep and her dream of when her and Amata first went swimming caused her to start masturbating. She quickly got out of the water and cleaned herself up getting her clothes on and almost sprinted her way back to Megaton trying to flush Amata from her mind. _Cmon Ruby stay focused you have a job to do! Finishing a book on helping people survive out here! _She didn't completely calm down from her aroused heat until she reached the gates of the town.

She stumbled into Craterside Supply and immediately vomited into a trashcan that lay just in front of Moira's front desk as Moira happily peered over at her waiting to hear her news as she asked in a genuinely concerned yet annoyingly motherly tone. "Awww feeling under the weather? Or a bit over the Geiger-Counter?" Ruby continued to cough and wheeze too tired to make a smartass retort as she mumbled. "I'm about as fucking radiated as I can without burning through your floor like a bleeding xenomorph." Moira squealed with delight as she ran to get her tools and came back to Ruby seeming to stand at attention. "Soo how are you feeling?" she asked as she got out her clipboard taking notes on the paper. Ruby decided to be nice as she coughed as she huffed out "Oh don't worry about me!" and went into a coughing fit for a few seconds and continued "I'm fine! Really!" She said as she wheezed from the ensuing coughing fit putting on her best tough girl act she could muster.

Moira gasped at Ruby's endurance "Aww you poor dear we'll get you fixed up in a jiffy." she said as she finished her notes and grabbed the magnets and Brahmin milk from her table. "Okay Ruby now sit down so we can get started." She smirked giggling and hopped onto the small table putting down her pack as she said "yes doctor do I get a lollipop afterwards for being such a good little girl?" She asked putting on her most childish pout and puffed out her chest. Moira chuckled as she tossed Ruby some of the bubblegum that had been in her store inventory causing the red-eyed girl to howl in excitement. _Wow and they say I'm crazy around here it feels like Ruby just flip flopped between two different people in just a few minutes! _Moira thought as she began the procedure.

When Ruby finally awoke after falling unconscious she looked at Moira who was scratching her head like a child that just ate his mother's cookies. "Did everything go well Moira?" Ruby asked tilting her head confused at what could have gone wrong. "Well your aliiiive…! That's the good news anyway however it seems your exposure to seems to have given you a sliiiight…mutation." Ruby immediately sat up as she zipped up her vault suit shooting death glares at Moira's resident perverted mercenary Steve. "Well if its any consolation it seems to be benign at least!" Moira said trying to cheer the now snarling Ruby up.

Ruby quickly stomped out of Craterside Supply not wanting to get herself into trouble by murdering the town's only General Store owner quickly running home and slamming the door behind her. "FUCKING SURVIVAL GUIDE!" She roared and punched the rusted steel wall of her home instantly regretting it as she felt one if its sharp pointed ends cut into her wrist and hear the snap of two of her finger bones. She growled in frustration as she quickly reached into her pack going to grab stimpaks while hissing from the pain and that was when she felt the bones suddenly snap back into place. _What the fuck?_ She thought as she looked at her wound and saw the massive gash on her wrist was closing and healing itself on its own as only a small amount of blood dripped onto the floor. "Whoa…that's actually really cool…maybe guzzling down radiated water was worth it after all." She chuckled and cracked off one of her signature psycho grins going up to her room going to bed happily having more dreams about Amata.


	12. Chapter 12:Arkansas,ghosts, and a dog

It was early in the morning when Ruby stepped out of her house in Megaton and looked at her To-do-list on her pip boy and realized that she had forgotten to ask Moira what her next task was. _Oh crap! I was so angry last night that I had didn't think to ask her! _and sighed with a sad shame as she walked over to Craterside Supply practicing her apology to the crazed inventor. To her surprise however Moira seemed unaffected from last night as if it had never happened as the young woman smiled when she saw Ruby enter the building. "Ohh there's my dedicated little research assistant! Did you get some good sleep?" She said as she was patching up what looked to be an old pre-war hoodie.

For a moment Ruby imagined Moira sneaking into her house and watching her sleep and then quickly shook the thought from her mind. _That's just creepier than getting seduced by some of the sleazy drunks around here. _She thought as she shivered in fright "Umm yeah I slept fine in fact I'm not mad about last night anymore turns out that mutation was worth the trouble anyway what do I need to do next?" Ruby replied in her most innocent of tones. Moira giggled in delight as she grabbed her checklist on what needed to be done to continue the chapter. "Well the final part of the first chapter will cover how to get through a minefield and I know just the place!" Ruby felt as if she might crack from what Moira just said. _I have to walk through a minefield?! _she thought furiously as she remembered reading about countless U.S. soldiers who were killed by landmines and saw all of the minefield scenes from the different war movies she watched in her mind. None of those events ever turned up ending pretty and she knew that all too well.

"Umm alright then where is this minefield you want me to go to?" she asked. Moira grabbed her arm and marked the location on her Pipboy map. "I've heard traders talk about it being a ghost town but since ghosts don't exist all you have to worry about are the mines! Oh and there's a playground in the middle of the town so if you can make it to the slide at that playground you should be fine!" She said in an overly-delighted tone. "Alright.. I'll go through minefield wish me luck" Ruby sighed as she accepted the task. She quickly walked out and loaded her pack journeying out of town. She grumbled about the thought of going through a minefield as she walked through the intense heat of the wasteland.

As she crossed the Potomac she noticed a dock where some raiders were camped out. _Fuck! _She thought and quickly dove into the dirt unslinging her hunting rifle from her back and looking down the sight at them. Ruby cracked off her signature grin as she pulled the trigger on the first woman of the raiders she saw. She fell from her position at the docks as the bullet passed through her head and she splashed into the murky depths of the radiated water. The other Raiders quickly went on alert grabbing their weapons as the warriors of the Lurker tribe were quickly cut down by what seemed to them as an unknown entity striking them from afar.

As the young girl named Ruby quickly dispatched them of their lives she quickly moved into the camp and left just as quickly as the Wasteland winds seemed to wipe away any trace of her being there. And as the scouts sent by Kreo the leader of the Lurker tribe went to investigate why the warrior's camp went dark they only came back with horrific stories of the warrior's bodies mutilated by what seemed to be the edge of a small blade and their flesh lying colder than the harsh nuclear winters that came after the bombs fell from the skies. Kreo would then take these stories to the Raider lord Crag at Evergreen Mills as he then learns further evidence that supported Maxine's story of the Dust Tribe at the Super Duper Mart being wiped out by some spirit that is now targeting raider tribes all across the Capital Wasteland beginning the stories of the Wasteland Ghost which will quickly become the source of fear among raiders and eventually spreads to the slavers of Paradise Falls where intelligent man Eulogy Jones even becomes troubled by the stories and quickly doubles the guard but fails to keep it quiet as the slaves within hear the stories as well and begin to sleep soundly filled with hope believing that they will be freed.

_Well that was fun _Ruby thought chuckling licking her lips figuring that killing those raiders was sure to calm her of her rage at least for a little while. She continued walking until she found what looked to be an old road "A road of the past….a lonesome road I must walk alone…" she whispered seeing the town of Minefield off in the distance and began walking towards it. She gazed at the neighborhood of abandoned houses that survived the war and drifted off into the thought at the people that could have lived in them 2 centuries ago. _Guess I'm going to find out soon enough…_ She thought solemnly and stopped at the edge of the neighborhood upon seeing the first of many mines that made the town so infamous. She looked up the curved road and saw a ruined destroyed building at the end "Shit…! I do not trust this one bit there has to be a sniper up at that building the top of it most likely has a perfect view of the town from there…." She said to herself and sighed thinking that if she could make it to the slide at the playground she should have some somewhat adequate cover.

As she crouched down and snuck out from her hiding place she immediately began feeling the sensation of being watched and not just by the sniper at the end of the street but she also felt eyes upon her from the houses themselves causing her to shiver in fascination and intense terror. She peeked up from behind one of the derelict cars and that was when she heard the first bullet whiz past her. "OH SHIT! Okay time to do this Ruby!" and stood up and let out a battle cry as she started her running up the road towards the playground "LEEEERRRROOOYYYYYY JEEENNNKKIIIINNNSSSS!".

**Note: I know what you guys are thinking and personally I agree but I just couldn't resist referencing that in this chapter because for any inexperienced player in fallout 3 charging through Minefield can be quite a difficult suicide run. Now back to the story ^^**

Jonathan "Arkansas" Trumbull had been running scared from the slavers for a while and so when he finally found Minefield as it was before its title was given he had been carrying a sniper rifle he had stolen from a tracker that had been following him before Jonathan was able to beat him to death with a shovel that the slavers tried to get him to dig his own grave with, He then filled the town with frag mines that he was able to scavenge from an old Pre-War military storage shed he found while on his journey. _A Patriot never loses his colors. _He thought as he remembered his days in the legendary Patriot mercenary company that had been formed up in Massachusetts when he was a much younger lad. He had quickly grown to be the best sharpshooter of the company and was regularly known in the Commonwealth as "The Cleaner" in which he would always erase evidence of his kills every time he'd assassinate a target. However after he retired he lost a shootout with a bounty hunter and was immediately sold into slavery and eventually brought to the Capital Wasteland. He had always been a fighter even after he entered his old age but as he stared down the sights of the sniper rifle firing at the young girl as she gracefully weaved through and away from the explosions of the derelict cars and mines triggered by his shots he couldn't help but think of his long-dead wife whom he had met in the Patriots Maria Campbell who lost her life to radiation sickness soon after they retired together from the Patriots.

That's when he realized that the young girl was at the playground and lying prone against the abandoned slide in the playground and was focusing her sights up towards him. He smiled knowing he was beaten as the last thing he heard was one of the cars exploding covering the sound of the 32 caliber bullet passing through his skull. As he fell back from his perch he could only think of Maria as he died. _I'm coming home honey…keep the beers up their cold and save one for me…_

Ruby rose from her hiding spot breathing heavily in exertion from her long-winded sprint and began to laugh happily. "Damn that was fun! Whoever this guy or chick was they were trained well! I want to meet this person's corpse now so I can shake their hand!" and half-skipped into the building dodging the various leftover mines that were still laying about remembering to snag one for Moira just in case she needed an artifact for her crazed experiments. She looked at the last mine ahead of her at the stairs and crawled up to it on her belly, as she got close the mine's heat sensor was triggered as it began to slowly beep to detonation. Ruby began quickly sweating as she rapidly disarmed the mine and swiped it from the ground placing it in her pack as she sighed in relief. "Phew…oh hey mines are probably pretty rare out here in the Wasteland so I should get some more…but first I want to meet the skilled ace I just killed." She walked up the stairs and looked around looting the stash of goods near the bed mattress she saw in the corner and then proceeded to the perch where she saw the sniper and when she found his body her mood immediately dropped.

"What…it was just some old man….?" She whispered gasping in shock and saddened surprise until she finally started laughing amidst her rising anger. "This old fuck nearly blew my pale ass SKY HIGH?! THAT IS SO RIDICULOUS!" and began kicking his corpse as she felt the tears rising in her eyes. "Is the next person that wants to kill me gonna be a kid or something?! Is this what the Wasteland does to people?!" She finally fell to her knees weeping for the old man as she saw imprinted marks of a collar on his neck. "An escaped slave too…?! Son of a bitch….! I just killed an escaped slave…! If only there was some way I could have helped this guy…!" She suddenly looked at the man and thought _well…there is one thing I can do… _and took out a rag from her pack beginning to clean the blood from his face as she picked up his body and leaned his body up against the wall. And as much as she wanted to take his rifle all she did was strip it of its ammo and then laid it down in his arms. "A true sniper dies with his rifle in his arms…because sometimes…that rifle is the only companion that sniper will ever have…" She whispered as she stood up and saluted his corpse taking the key from his pockets and leaving the building.

_At least anybody who has the balls to come here again and see his body they'll know that tough old bastard went down fighting… _She thought as she entered the first house and was soon immediately overwhelmed by a cold sensation in the house as well as eyes being upon her. "Fuck its cold in here….Okay Ruby calm down….just loot what you can and then leave…just loot what you can and then leave." No sooner had she said that while she was looting the first two rooms she heard a voice.

_Help us…._

Ruby felt her hair stand up on end as she immediately pulled her 10mm pistol from its holster looking around cautiously and continued looting. As she turned towards the kitchen she suddenly could hear footsteps upstairs causing the aging wood holding up the carpet there to eerily creak. "Who's there?!" She was able to croak out sweating in fear as she looted through the kitchen taking note to grab intact Pre-War books in the house and ammo from the bodies she found inside most likely evidence of the elderly sniper.

She finally worked up the courage to walk up the stairs looking around cautiously continuing to take what she believed to be useful from each of the rooms. She felt her breath was quickening from the fear she was feeling and began to try and calm herself down as she saw the skeletons of two adults in the bed of the master bedroom. _Two lovers dying together in their last moments…well at least they had that courtesy. _She thought as she took the Med-X from their bedside tables finishing her scavenging of the house. However she was not prepared as she turned back into the hallway only to find a little girl standing there in a long tattered dress holding a teddy bear that seemed to be covered in blood. What scared her even more is when the little girl looked up at her she was seeing her own face from when she was a little girl. "_Bye lady…." _the little girl whispered and waved as her body suddenly began to combust as the house began to shake violently. All Ruby could hear next was the bloodcurdling shrieks of the child's terrified agony she felt that day as the fire of the nuclear bombs cleansed her bones of her flesh. The screaming continued until Ruby realized the screams were now her own and that she had collapsed in the hallway from fright. "I gotta get out of here!" She said as she quickly got up and ran towards the stairs, as she turned towards going down the steps she looked towards the rack of dinner plates and saw a black ash covered face glaring at her causing Ruby to scream in terror again pulling out her pistol and shooting the plates as she sprinted down the stairs and ran outside.

Her other adventures into the other houses were as unfortunately horrifying as the first as Ruby completed her scavenging and left Minefield as fast as she could. "'Ghosts don't exist' HA! My tits they don't!" Her journey away from the town helped her calm herself as she saw the signs of a scrap yard which helped Ruby quickly get over her fear as she squealed in excitement thinking about all of the useful tools she could find inside and ran towards the location.

As she climbed over a broken section of the perimeter fence she immediately heard gunfire and a dog growling. _More Raiders?! Ambushing a caravan most likely I better go bail their asses out. _She thought as she pulled out her pistol running towards the source of the fighting. When she arrived there however, the shots were long dead silent as she found the bodies of a scavenger and a whole squad of raiders. "Whoa…" was all she could say as she saw a moderately healthy-looking dog clad in black and grey fur walking towards her whimpering sadly at its dead master. Ruby fell in love with him immediately as she got down on her knees and hugged the lonely animal. "Awww you lost your owner huh boy?" She asked as she allowed him to sniff her hand as he begin to lick her cheek in a friendly acceptance as she caressed his fur. He only whimpered in response looking back towards the dead scavenger. "I know how you feel, I lost my dad…" She said as she looked at the makeshift leather collar on his neck reading _Dogmeat_ hearing him whimper again in returned heartfelt sympathy for her. Ruby stood up and began looting the guns and the ammo from the bodies and looked at the dog again as he nuzzled the face of the woman who had been his previous owner.

"Hey…you're quite the badass you know that Dogmeat? Most dogs out here wouldn't be able to take out six heavily armed raiders alone." Dogmeat looked up at her and began to wag his tail barking happily at her compliment. Ruby giggled in delight as she patted her thighs motioning him to follow her "Come on you sexy little canine badass come with me and we will have a lot more raider ass to kick." She said grinning excited at the thought of her no longer being alone and having her own dog with her to boot. Dogmeat barked happily and began to follow the beautiful young red-eyed human girl back to Megaton.


	13. Chapter 13: School's out Forever

Three days had passed since Ruby had returned with Dogmeat and had received her reward from when she went into Minefield. Within that time she had been able to get to know most of Megaton's citizens even the horny drunks she KNEW were gazing at her cleavage more than they were at her face, Ruby had especially grown fond of Billy Creel's adopted daughter Maggie from which she played with her and Harden from time to time. They would even sometimes play fetch with Dogmeat who took a while to adapt himself into the bonding game between humans and dogs. After learning of Maggie's unfortunate origin of how Billy found her and she had heard that Billy had been teaching her how to shoot that gave Ruby an idea, although that would mean that she would have to convince Billy himself to let her do it.

"No! I won't allow her to be put in danger again!" Billy said as he walked towards the center of Megaton with a begging and pleading Ruby on his tail. "Come on Billy! Maggie needs this! She needs to know she doesn't have to be afraid of the raiders! Just let me take her with me on a scavving run to the Springvale Elementary School!" Billy had just returned from a trade deal with Doc Hoff's medical caravan as they passed by Megaton's front gate when Ruby had come out to ask him about it, needless to say he was pissed she'd think about doing such a thing to his adopted daughter.

Ruby sighed in regret as she decided to drive the knife point home. "You think she's always gonna be a good little girl and stay in Megaton? You think she isn't going to follow in your footsteps? You are a father to her Billy you were her knight in shining armor that day you found her terrified under her bed. Once she really gets used to holding a weapon what makes you think she isn't going to one day walk out of here and go get revenge on the nearest raider tribe she can find? She needs this Billy and you would have to be a complete fucking idiot to not see that." Billy bit his lip as she turned and saw the cold crimson sharp stare from Ruby's eyes that could peel away power armor.

_I'd hoped she wouldn't do that when she got older but…at the same time I can't help but know that my little Maggie is gonna grow up soon…and I'm sure she hasn't forgotten what those raiders did to her parents… _He thought and finally sighed as he remembered walking into her house that day finding a bedroom caked in blood, a man brutally beaten and mutilated, a mother raped and tortured to death…and a scared little girl coming out from hiding under their corpses gazing up at her eyes dried from shed tears and filled with hope. "Damnit….fine…you can take her with you…" Ruby sparked up in joy "Oh thank you! Thank you!" and hugged him tightly as he squirmed uncomfortable as her massive chest pressed up against him. She was about to let go as he grabbed her shoulders "Promise me though okay…? Promise me she comes back safe and alive…" He begged as he remembered a happy brown eyed little girl jumping with joy after out shooting him on the range in the armory. He looked at Ruby's face as it took a soft motherly tone when she smiled softly and he felt her lips press against his.

As she pulled away she whispered "you're a good father Billy…you gave her a life that I'm sure not many kids in the Wasteland have…" and looked down forcing back her own tears as she thought of her own dad wandering around the Wasteland doing whatever he thought was worth leaving his own daughter behind in some god-awful Vault where almost everyone wished she never existed at all. She quickly turned and ran to look for Maggie before Billy could question her about it as he watched her sensing the girl's internal suffering. "She's hurting too…she's just beating it down while caring more about others than herself…wish she'd tell at least one of us what's hurting her because it seems like something more than her Dad."

Maggie Creel was ecstatic with excitement as she followed Ruby and Dogmeat out of Megaton and into Springvale. _I get to go shoot raiders and scavenge stuff with the coolest girl in town! This is so awesome! _She thought as she stared at the pretty young woman from behind in admiration silently praying to be just like her when she got older.

The group traveled through the ghost town until Ruby spotted something amongst some derelict cars and ran up to it seeing that it was a box of clothes. She picked up one of the shirts as she looked on the back carrying the picture of an attractive woman holding a pistol wearing those exact clothes saying _Tough Girl _on it. "Tough huh? That's just like us!" Maggie said with a grin on her face staring at Ruby. Dogmeat barked at them both and whimpered at Ruby believing they were forgetting about him. Ruby smirked and hugged her two companions "Of course we are tough and I could never forget about you Dogmeat you'd bring any girl running with those awesome eyes of yours you bachelor!" and chuckled patting his head as he happily barked at her feeling loved in her affection.

What happened next caused all three of them to look up as the sky began to turn grey as clouds gathered and small drops of water began to hit the ground. Ruby blinked in surprise staring up at the sky as she began to hear thunder in the clouds "Well today just got really weird its seriously raining." Maggie, being a child born in the Wasteland had never seen it rain and was dancing with excitement feeling the patter of rain drops against her skin. Ruby took hold of her hand, "Cmon lets get over to the school I got a bad feeling we have a storm coming." Sure enough as the trio ran through the town and arrived at the front door of the school the rain had become more intense and the thunder had become lightning as it raged across the sky.

They quickly rushed inside taking care to not alert the likely patrolling raiders around the halls. She pressed a finger to Maggie's lips as she gave the signal to follow moving towards the wall as she peeked out into the first hallway looking over and seeing a doorway into one of the classrooms. She quickly assumed that the raiders were using the classrooms and rest areas where they slept. She grinned taking out her combat knife when she heard Maggie gasp in fear.

She quickly turned around to stab anyone who might be attacking her when she saw that the little girl had her hand over her mouth and was staring into a cage. As Ruby walked over towards the cage she gritted her teeth and tightened her grip on her knife until she felt her nails cutting into her palm as she saw small child and adult sized skeletons inside the cage. "The people here they… killed them all…" Maggie whispered her eyes wide imagining the horrors the surviving students and teachers here suffered after the bombs fell as she suddenly saw an image of small children and teachers finally coming out of their makeshift bomb shelter under the school only to find enraged psychopaths ruthlessly either gunning them down or taking them away to be tortured to death. _I'm gonna fucking murder every last one of these bastards in here…_ She thought and turned towards the hallway going into a break room most likely used for school staff seeing a dead a fat creature that looked to be like a giant version of a naked mole rat that people would see in pet stores in the Old World and she saw one of the raiders cutting up some meat fixing himself a meal. Ruby quickly rushed up behind the man jamming her knife into his spine as she covered his mouth and purred at his suffering as he slowly lost consciousness and died.

Ruby stared at his corpse as blood started to slightly squirt from his wounds, her throat began to feel dry as she watched the corpse bleed and quickly shook her head grasping her neck. _Why the hell was I feeling so thirsty all of the sudden? Just what the hell is wrong with me? _She decided not to dwell on it as Maggie and Dogmeat entered the room. She stared at the raider Ruby had killed and she wondered if Maggie was imagining herself in her position ready to kill the raiders that murdered her parents.

Clearing the first floor was easier than it seemed and Ruby was glad that most of the raiders they were killing were asleep on the job so she wouldn't have to worry about putting Maggie through any intense shootouts. Although going through the school made her feel as if she were in Minefield again hearing whispers here, foot steps there. Only this time that was accompanied by occasional screams in the darkness. _Why the hell has every building I've walked into so far been haunted? My mind's already been fucked enough! _She could hear footsteps upstairs coming down realizing that there must be more upstairs as she took out Mr. Burke's suppressed 10mm pistol and shot at anyone who came down the steps and then looked at Dogmeat whispering "Sick em boy…!" as he started snarling in acknowledgement running up the steps as her and Maggie both heard frantic gunshots and screams upstairs until finally she heard Dogmeat victoriously bark the all-clear.

When the two girls walked up to the second floor and entered the library they found a treasure trove of untouched books. "Holy shit…." Ruby said to which Maggie replied "Swear" causing Ruby to apologize looking at how adorable it was that she didn't let her use swear words in front of her at all as she silently giggled resisting the urge to hug her then and there. _Well she's a little girl so its understandable but damnit if it isn't cute…! _She thought as they began taking inventory of all the supplies in and outside the library. As she stuffed the books in her pack she noticed some that really stood out to her. "Oh my god they've got manga…!" She said excitedly and quickly began to stuff all of the manga books there were into her pack. Maggie watched her and tilted her head like a dog as she asked "Manga? What's that?" Ruby giggled and turned to her smiling "it's a type of book that was made in Japan back before the War they are basically book forms of a lot of different anime TV shows." Maggie nodded and then tilted her head again asking. "What's anime?" Ruby shook her head smiling at Maggie's cuteness saying that she'd show her when they returned to Megaton.

They continued searching through the classrooms as Ruby saw some old gang tags on the wall causing her to smile as she remembered the gang that her and Amata were leaders of back in the Vault.

_Ruby was backed into a corner as both Tunnel Snakes Wally Mack and Butch Deloria slowly came towards her brandishing switchblades in hand as Wally chuckled perversely hungrily gazing at her chest ready to pounce on her at any moment. Butch patted his shoulder as he grabbed her chin grinning "from now on anytime you want to even so much as go grab a Nuka Cola you gotta pay a toll." Ruby glared at him defiantly as she snarled "Oh like you had Annie pay a toll? Or Mary? Don't fuck around with me Butch I know you and your greaser-wannabe thugs have been gang banging the girls around here." That was when she felt Wally grab onto her chest and begin to unzip her vault suit as Butch punched her in the cheek. "That's right you dyke we fucked em hard and lets just say their payments have been very…consistent" and laughed as he watched Wally begin to tear open her undershirt. That was when Amata came in and bashed them both with a baseball bat. That was how the Vault Maidens were born, however after weeks of gang-fighting Alphonse forced Amata to disband the gang threatening to order security to come down on them. Ruby and the other girls weren't pleased however Ruby had seen the nervous looks her dad gave her every time she walked out scantily clad in their modified short skirted Vault suits that left the cleavage exposed and soon agreed to disband the gang but quietly gave her last order to the other girls to resist the Tunnel Snakes on their own as much as they could. _

Ruby walked out into the hallway and found a terminal next to a _Duck and Cover! _explosives manual as she quickly swiped it and sat down beginning to read the terminal as it contained entries from the tribal leader of the raider Blind Veil tribe.

_User: SUK ME HAHA! _

_Entry 1. Boppo got his ass plugged by Simms last week, fucking idiot deserved getting shot up. We got a good thing goin on here set up at the school, bashing caravans, stealing away supplies and hostages in caravans on their way to Megaton. However the dumbass decides to lead an assault squad onto Megaton, The assholes deserved the massacre they got._

_Entry 2. There's way better gold to be had here one of my scouts came in talkin about a vault just up the hill from town and so we went under the school and have begun makin a tunnel towards it. Damn shovels and pickaxes broke almost immediately so the boys decided to use grenades and mines to tunnel through, fucking genius idea last few explosions damn near shook the whole building apart, we got a new window or two on the left side ha-ha._

_Entry 3. Fucking scabs ran into an ant nest down there. Stupid things ate six of my best diggers before we could lock the door, if we can get into that Vault none of us will have to worry about ever wanting again. Now I just gotta figure out how the hell to clear out those ants or my ass is gonna get shot up too only it won't be Simms or Lord Crag it'll be my own men. _

_Nohman_

Ruby gasped in disbelief, "No..No…No…! they are trying to get to Vault 101...!" Maggie peeked out seeing the paler terrified expression on her best friends face and walked over taking her hand gazing up at her. "What's wrong Ruby?" She asked as her eyes seemed to glitter with concern. Ruby quickly smiled as she felt the raging bloodlust rise up inside her grabbing her 10mm pistol and giving it to her "Stay here if anyone who isn't me comes up those stairs I want you to shoot em okay sweetie?" Maggie nodded as she awkwardly checked if the pistol was loaded. Dogmeat whimpered as he tugged at her pant leg with his paw. "I need you to stay here Dogmeat and protect Maggie if something happens to me I want you to get her back to Megaton as fast as you can got it?" She whispered petting and kissing his head as he barked in acknowledgement.

Ruby then stepped down the stairs sneaking into the basement as the last thing she heard before she blacked out was the ants crawling and the raiders laughing as they dragged her off to Nohman.

Maggie Creel sat against the desk petting Dogmeat as she stared down the hall towards the stairway she watched her friend Ruby go down to clear out the basement of giant ants and raiders. 30 minutes had already passed since she had entered the basement and Maggie was already beginning to get worried. _She's the toughest girl in town she shot that weirdo Mr. Burke and I bet she could beat up ol' Mr. Jericho and Moriarity if she wanted to! _She thought trying to reassure herself. 30 more minutes had passed until finally Maggie decided enough was enough and grabbed Ruby's 10mm pistol and clicked off the safety walking down the steps with Dogmeat in toe. As she opened the door she heard the raiders laughing as one groaned. She snuck around the hallways until she found a barricaded room and gasped in horror as she saw the 4 remaining raiders including whom she assumed to be Nohman from what she read on the terminal gathered around Ruby as she was covered in cuts and bruises on her knees having the top of her armored vault suit pulled off and her undershirt cut to ribbons exposing her large pale breasts as they had just begun raping her after torturing her in interrogation. What happened next Maggie couldn't remember much as all she heard was her own scream and then 4 rapid gunshots.

Ruby sat there regaining her composure breathing heavily as she saw Maggie standing in front of her trembling in terror the barrel from her pistol freshly smoking after being fired. Ruby smiled weakly opening her arms as Maggie ran into her in a hug crying as she buried her face against Ruby's cleavage. "Its okay Maggie calm down…Its over now you saved my life." Maggie looked up into her eyes sniffling "I was just so scared…I was scared I was gonna lose you like I lost Mom and Dad…" Ruby kissed her head as she sat there comforting the little girl for hours until finally she redressed and stood up and went to clear the ants out of the tunnel. After that was done she came back up from the tunnel seeing that Maggie had fallen asleep. Dogmeat lay beside her protectively watching over her as Ruby smiled _God your just too cute Maggie Creel like a girl after my own heart. _She fondly thought as she picked up the little girl and carried her back to Megaton into Billy's care.


	14. Chapter 14:Burning Guilt

**Hey guys! I apologize for the wait I went on vacation with some friends to Albuquerque and so that kind of screwed with my research time but oh well it was fun anyway this is just a short one to celebrate the coming of the RWBY series from Roosterteeth premiering tomorrow.**

Ruby sat in Moriarity's Saloon in Megaton marking down a Bestiary of the creatures she had encountered so far as she sipped a bottle of Nuka Cola. It all seemed business as usual just like any other day, however she was feeling heavily guilty, she still hadn't delivered Lucy West's message to her family in Arefu and the sad looks she would see her give her anytime they crossed paths in town made her feel absolutely terrible. _Okay as soon as I can I'll need to take a break from all that research with Moira because all those looks Lucy always gives me are starting to remind me of Amata…! _She thought furiously as she shot a death glare at a guy checking her out.

However things just got more annoying for her as a couple stormed through the door screaming at each other. Ruby immediately recognized them as Carol Foster and Larry Riviera, a couple she met during her first few days in Megaton of which it was no secret they were having trouble in the relationship, it was clear today that that relationship wasn't going to survive. "I SAID WE COULD GET MORE FOOD IF WE MOVED TO RIVET CITY!" Larry shouted as he marched up on Carol as she backpedaled firing back. "AND I SAID IM NOT LEAVING THIS TOWN! ITS MY FUCKING HOME LARRY AND YOU CAN GO FUCK YOURSELF IF YOU THINK IM LEAVING IT!" Larry started to raise his hand when he suddenly felt his wrist caught into a death grip.

Ruby glared at him as she squeezed his wrist gritting her teeth together as she said. "I do believe the lady said she isn't leaving with you." Larry glared back at her as he retorted "This doesn't involve you bitch now get your huge tits out of my face before I beat the shit out of you as well." Unfortunately Larry had no idea the hell he walked into as he turned and tried to hit the crimson-eyed girl next to him but only struck air as she seemed to vanish from his sight until he felt a rapid punch to his stomach causing him to double over gasping for breath. Ruby didn't give him the courtesy to do so as she forced him back upright and grabbed his crotch as she clamped her hand on his testicles squeezing them hard causing Larry intense pain. "Instead of bitch your going to call me SIR got it?!" She snarled as she clasped hard on his crotch causing him to yelp and cry out in pain. "Y-Yes sir!" he said between gasps as she smiled sadistically and leaned up close to his face as he felt her breath on his lips "Good boy, now then if you wanna leave then fine fuck it otherwise I can just drag your sorry ass off to Simms for a domestic disturbance! Now I'd answer quick Larry before I crush your fucking worthless balls into jelly!" Larry could only nod rapidly as Ruby dragged him to the door and kicked him outside as she watched him run for the town gate. _Hope the fucker gets devoured by Mole Rats…._ She thought as she turned towards Carol checking her for bruises while the young woman stared at Ruby in both shock and frightened amazement. "You should go to Simms and tell him what happened and then move on babe." Ruby said as she smiled and kissed her softly on the lips knowing full well of their audience. Carol could only nod slowly as she stumbled out of the bar bewildered at what had just happened to her.

Ruby smiled and giggled happily as she paid her tab, packed her things and picked up Dogmeat from her house as the duo then began their long and arduous journey to Arefu. Although little did Ruby Hanson know, that a dark secret awaited her on this quest…a secret that would forever change her life….


	15. Chapter 15:Kaelyn's Orgy

A day had passed since Ruby and Dogmeat had departed Megaton for Arefu and so far it had been torture for Ruby Hanson as thoughts swirled in her mind imagining Lucy West as Amata scared, worried, and alone away from her family. _Damnit! I can't let these thoughts distract me! But fuck I miss her so much… She is gonna die in that vault… she's angry that you didn't force her to come with you…_ Ruby quickly shook her head screaming at her insane mind "SHUT UP! I KNOW! I KNOW!" and realized that Dogmeat was looking at her worried as if she were a child having an awful nightmare. She bent over and caressed his fur crooning "Don't worry boy just taking a painful rollercoaster ride of thoughts in my psychotic mind." Dogmeat seemed to wag his tail in a relieved acknowledgement as the two heard gunshots causing the duo to dive into the dirt as Ruby immediately unsung her sniper rifle and gazed through the scope.

What she saw sickened her to the core yet frighteningly excited her as she felt chills run through every curve of her body. She gazed at a small ruined building that held a large sign saying _Kaelyn's Bed and Breakfast, _as it was inhabited by the small developing tribe of Raiders known as the Sluggers. These young upstarts carried their signature baseball bats due to their proximity to the nearby Fordham Memorial baseball field. They had barely formed up months ago and yet they had already made a name for themselves in giving the caravans rushing to deliver supplies to nearby Arefu on the overpass hell. Even they could not escape the spreading horrifying stories of the Wasteland Ghost, yet they weren't immediately concerned as they had just bagged a recent caravan carrying a shipment of ammo to Arefu as the young men and women quickly tore into the spoils as they had quickly overwhelmed the female caravan guard, the boys immediately having their ways with her repeatedly until finally she lay broken like a naked doll amongst the corpselike ruin as the boys soon hung her up on a chain and beat her to death until every bone in her body shattered then fed her vegetable of a naked body to their two dogs. The male caravaneer met a similar fate as he was stripped naked and pinned to one of the walls by the female members of the tribe as one took a scavenged 9 tails whip and began torturing the poor man with it as its bright silver claws tore into his pale flesh.

Ruby could only watch as the torture continued until he too was fed to the dogs. She gazed at the spilt blood and felt her throat tighten again as she grasped at her neck. "What the hell…? Why does it keep happening when I see blood…?" Her question was left unanswered as night fell and Ruby felt her body become warm and something inside snap. _I feel so hot….holy crap I really do get off on seeing people suffer…_was all she could think as she suddenly smiled wide as she felt her own beast of madness take over.

She quickly pulled the trigger taking care of the dogs first as she stood up putting away her rifle as she pulled out her 10mm pistol which she affectionately named Scarlet sprinting into the building and howling in an ecstasy-filled animalistic tone. The Sluggers never stood a chance as the legend herself rapidly descended upon them like a wraith from the darkness cutting them down aiming for the males and wounding the females until only they were left alive. Ruby giggled excitedly as she gazed at the young women before her. "Dogmeat sweetie would you mind making sure no one disturbs us?" She said in a creepily bright and chipper voice. Dogmeat only barked in response as he walked outside of the front door way and lay down in the dirt watching for any intruders.

Ruby then turned towards the frightened raider girls and smiled widely as she holstered Scarlet. "Now then ladies if you feel like living longer I suggest you lose the clothes and line up." The girls quickly complied, all except one who tried diving for a grenade but was quickly cut down as Ruby pulled Scarlet from the holster and shot her in the head. She then glared at the other girls as her frustration rose, "Now then anyone else want to be a fucking hero?! Now strip you cock sucking junkies!" The girls then quickly removed their clothing and did as she ordered. "Oh Good! Now then.." She said and pointed to the first of the 7 girls left. "You big tits we are gonna have some fun." She said as she pulled out her combat knife and removed her own clothing.

She then pressed the girl against the wall and grappled one of her hands onto her breasts as she traced the blade of her knife deep into the girl's skin as she held her close. She heard the girl moan and seemed to press against her body causing the knife to go into her waist causing blood to spurt out as she then screamed in agony. Ruby had never felt so aroused in her life as she got down facing the gaping wound and began licking and lapping at her blood. She moaned loudly like an animal in heat as she threw the girl down and straddled her rubbing her womanhood against the raider girl's as she continued torturing the girl licking at her bloody wounds. _Oh my fucking god this is so hot…! All I want…is for these raiders to suffer…suffer…SUFFER!_ She thought as she soon bit into the young female's jugular and wildly slurping at her chem infested blood.

It seemed to last an hour as the two girls ruthlessly had sex one slowly dying as her sisters helplessly watched in terror knowing that would be them next. Sure enough as the first girl died Ruby continued onto the next girl, and the next, until finally she lay naked amongst their corpses as blood soaked her neck, and breasts as she busily went about cleaning the resulting wetness between her legs from her bloody orgy. As she then began cleaning the blood off of her skin with some dirty rags she could hear her compatriot Dogmeat barking. She quickly grabbed Scarlet sliding on her panties and ran out looking around only to see a dark figure fleeing towards the Potomac River in the distantance amongst the bright moonlight.

It was then that Ruby realized after she calmed down what she just did. "Did I just seriously bathe and feast on a live human beings blood, and like it?"


	16. Chapter 16:A Misunderstanding

Ruby gazed at the town of Arefu through her sniper rifle's scope on the ruined highway overpass as she huddled down at Kaelyn's Bed and Breakfast wondering how she was going to go about delivering Lucy's message to her brother without causing any trouble. What troubled her even more is how deserted the town seemed. _Just a few houses and a small line of sandbags not to mention that small section of fucked up concrete to pincer in movement of anyone who'd want to assault the town. Its one hell of a chokepoint, I sure hope they have a large guard. _And what she saw next answered her fears as she spotted sudden small movement hiding behind the sandbags. She spied that it was a single old man wearing dark pants, a dark blue overcoat with bullet belts across both of his sides and wore a leather Pre-War cap with goggles wrapped around it armed with only a G3 assault rifle. "You have to be fucking kidding me…only one guard?" She mumbled as she rose up dusting dirt from her armored vault suit and groaned at how much she hated how tight vault suits felt on her body. Dogmeat noticed her movement and rose to follow her as the two traveled along the road cautiously towards the overpass.

_With any luck gramps up there doesn't have a 30 cal machinegun ready to rip Dogmeat and I apart or this could get messy. _She thought as they began traveling up the ramp. She heard something metallic clang to the pavement as she looked down and saw a lit pipe bomb in front of her. "Shit…!" and dove behind the ruined roadblock as it exploded showering her with bits of dusted asphalt. She frantically looked around for Dogmeat and as the smoke cleared she saw him curled up against the guard rail of the highway snarling as his side lay bleeding due to the shrapnel of the pipe bomb. "DOGMEAT!" She cried out in fright and then snarled in anger now pissed off that this old fuck hurt her only companion in this hell of a Wasteland. She heard footsteps along the pavement figuring that the old man must be coming to finish them off. "Oh shit oh shit…" was all she heard him say as he leveled his rifle towards Dogmeat. "Sorry boy but I'm not gonna let anyone from The Family attack this town again..!" She saw him stop in front of her.

Evan King was what you'd call a paranoid man, back when Arefu was first founded he was a younger man then, a stronger man whom with the help of the town's citizens fought off raider attacks, Mole Rats, wild dogs, and even clubbed a giant radscorpion once. However now the Arefu he once knew was basically a ghost town with only a handful of people left, and as he leveled his rifle his better judgment told him that something was incredibly wrong, the dog he was looking at looked healthier than most of the dogs he'd seen in the Wasteland, and the young girl he saw with it looked cleaner like she was from a vault or something. _It is a shame I could have trained this dog to help me guard the town, however that girl…_the young innocent face of the girl he caught a glimpse of just before he lit the fuse of the pipe bomb and tossed it at her reminded him of his wife Daisy…How she used to smile at him when he would return from patrols…how she'd help him clean and repair his rifles…_No! No! quit thinking about the past Evan! The Family is threatening your hometown and livelihood so you cant take any chances! _He'd assumed the girl had fallen through one of the holes in the overpass and was probably lying crumpled and broken with her head smashed open like a squashed tomato. That was when he heard the click of a 10mm pistol behind him and heard her voice as she gave off a feral snarl, "Touch him and your brains decorate the fucking road…!" Evan King froze with terror as he dropped his rifle raising his hands behind his head "Oh shit…! You really aren't one of them…! And I nearly blew you both to bits…!"

Evan King stood petrified with fear as he tried to turn and get a look at the girl and what he saw both frightened him yet made him feel like he was staring at Daisy all over again clad in her leather armor armed with an assault rifle. Only this girl was different, incredibly different, her skin lay deathly pale even in the sunlight as if the suns rays refused to touch it, her dark long hair struck him as an odd feature about her but it seemed to work as and he still tells others to this day that her eyes were what terrified him the most. Those deadly blood-red eyes that within the months to come he still swears up and down that he saw those eyes glowing. _Just what the hell is she?!_ He thought as he prepared for the inevitable death to come as he heard her voice again.

"Are you always this fumbly with your explosives you old bastard?! Who is them?! I'm only here to deliver a letter to Lucy's brother Ian West!" The old man seemed to calm down slightly at the mention of Lucy's name as Ruby heard rapid running footsteps and a sharp pain as she fell over collapsed. _Not again…_She thought as she lost consciousness staring over at Dogmeat with sadness rising in her eyes.

She awoke several hours later in a small house as dimming sunlit rays peeked through the rusting metal cracks. _Feels like I'm back home again…_that was when she heard a familiar barking and a large form tackle her down onto the bed showering her and excitedly relieved licks. "Dogmeat! Oh thank god your alive!" She said and hugged the dog close feeling tears rise in her eyes "I was scared to death that I was going to lose you…then I'd be alone out here again…" She whispered as she caressed his fur kissing his muzzle. Dogmeat whimpered as he nuzzled his master's worried face putting a paw on her shoulder letting her know that he'd live.

"That's a really badass dog you have there" a young voice said as the front door opened and walked in a tall young red-headed woman who couldn't have been barely older than she was. "Thanks…" Ruby said with a cautious growl in her tone not sure of whether she should trust her. The woman seemed to quickly react to her suspicion as she held up her hands chuckling nervously as if she were a child who knocked over mom's prized vase. "Hey don't worry I'm unarmed I apologize for knocking you unconscious earlier when I saw you pointing your gun at Evan I got really scared so I acted quickly."

Ruby blinked as her eyes widened now noticing the woman's features and what she just said. _Holy shit…this hottie knocked me out cold? With her agility I have no idea whether to feel turned on, honored, or just continue having a huge headache._

The woman blushed immediately noticing Ruby checking her out as she stuttered her next words chuckling even more nervously as she noticed the hunger in eyes of the girl before her. "W-Well lets introduce one another! My name is Karen Schenzy! What's yours?" Ruby blinked again stopping for a moment from sizing up the beautiful woman's hourglass curves and smiled innocently shaking her hand. "My name is Ruby Hanson nice to meet you Karen!"

Despite Ruby's constant probing of mentally undressing and mentally ravaging Karen the two quickly became friends as they took turns explaining their situations. Karen started with explaining the town's situation leading right up to the point of which she first came out of her house and saw that their town sheriff was in danger. Ruby just nodded and listened and then explained her purpose for coming to Arefu starting from when she left the vault and met Lucy West in Megaton leading up to her journey to the town and the confrontation that happened while making sure to leave out the part of her having a murderous bloody orgy with several female raiders at Kaelyn's Bed and Breakfast.

"Wow it seems like you have had one helluva journey!" Karen exclaimed with amazement at Ruby's accomplishments so far. "Well if you're here looking for Lucy's family good luck, no one has heard from them since the last attack The Family made and personally I'm getting worried." Ruby sat up from the bed as she picked up her pack and noticed the large bandage on Dogmeat's side. _Damnit…! No telling how long it'll be before that wound heals!_ She thought as Karen noticed her worried expression. "Hey no worries about your dog Evan put a stimpak on the wound and I bandaged it up he just needs rest for a day or so." Ruby smiled at Karen relieved that her and that old man both saved her companion's life. "I'll be sure to tell you what happened with the West's if I find anything" Karen smiled and nodded as Ruby exited the house.

She found Evan King waiting for her outside with a I-really-feel-like-ass look on his face. "Hey kid I'm really sorry about almost killing your dog like that its just that with all this crap going on against The Family it weighs down on an old man like me ya know?" Ruby hugged him tightly patting his back as she looked in his eyes and smiled softly. "Hey you were just doing your job defending your home I can understand that completely." Evan was taken aback by her sudden forgiving act of affection as he reminisced about when Daisy would comfort him in situations like this. "Hey I still feel like shit for what happened though and since it seems like your willing to help take this for good luck." and held out a small pristine bobble head of the Vault-Tec mascot. Ruby remembered back when she was 16 on the day of her GOAT exam her dad allowed her to take a similar bobble head that had one of the Vault Boy holding a medicinal syringe. _I still got that little thing back home in Megaton at least…_She sighed as she felt a wave of despair washing over her as she thought about her dad again and stared at the Vault boy bobble head carrying a wrench.

Evan stared at her for a while seeing the mist in her eyes and patted her shoulder putting it in her hands. "Its okay kid, we all have suffered some kind of shit out here." Ruby looked up at Evan and smiled softly forcing back the tears that she felt building up in her eyes. _What is it with old men and being so good at comforting me out here?_ She thought and silently walked past Evan to the house where Lucy's family lived as the man now felt calmer and happier as he watched the town's real only hope enter the house.

What Ruby saw in that house made her gasp with fright as she fought back the urge to scream. "Oh shit…" was all she could say as she saw the blood spattered walls and the shriveled up dry corpses of Lucy's mom and dad.


	17. Chapter 17: The Demon Within

Ruby stood there horrified yet fascinated staring at the corpses as the symbol for The Family bore down on her like a neon-lit sign. "Hmm it is possible for a large blade like a sword to make this kind of mess but there's no stab wounds or slash marks…" She mumbled though she did notice some strange wounds that almost looked as if they were savagely attacked and began to examine the bodies. That was when she found the bite marks on their necks she carefully traced the small incisions with her finger. "Too clean to be from a wild dog…they'd have ripped out the jugular otherwise…" that was when she remembered the raiders she fed off of. "Holy shit…no it couldn't be…its got to be some sort of coincidence…" and took out a small notepad taking notes and sketching the bite marks, Ruby never was perfect at drawing though thanks to a dream she once had to write manga and draw doujins of her favorite characters she had been able to get some good practice. _Good thing I snagged a pencil out of the vault before I left._ She thought as she finished stuffing them away and walking out to meet up with Evan.

She found the old man outside standing guard behind the sandbags at the entrance to the town smoking a cigarette, his paranoia of another attack by The Family wrecking his nerves as his hands trembled. Ruby walked up to him causing him to spin facing her terrified as if she were about to pounce on him. "Whoa Whoa relax its just me!" Ruby said quickly holding up her hands as she saw Evan's assault rifle shaking from his trembling as it lay pointed at her chest. He finally calmed down and lowered the rifle coughing as he grabbed some water from his canteen drinking it. "Oh thank Christ you scared the shit out of me kid, are the Wests okay?

Ruby looked down remembering their mangled corpses from a short while ago as she shook her head. "No…when I got inside there was blood all over the walls and their bodies were all shriveled up." Evan gasped in horror, "Sonuva bitch! They must have gotten them in the last attack…! Those bastards will definitely pay now…!" Then stopped as if caught in a sudden thought. "Wait a minute, did you happen to see their son's body Ian with them?" Ruby blinked in surprise "No I didn't see a third body in there why do you ask?" Evan piped up in a sudden realization believing what must have happened. "He must be still alive then and those sons of bitches have him! Look kid I'm old as dirt and all I can do is watch down this ramp so I know you've helped us out enough but could you track him down and rescue him? I and this whole fucking town will be in your debt."

Ruby thought about it for a moment and nodded "If there's any chance he's alive then hell yeah I'll bring him back come hell or high water." Evan chuckled and patted her shoulder "Well lets hope it wont have to come to that…Thanks kid your alright." Suddenly a bright and chipper voice killed the seriousness of the mood "Oh Evan dear! I'm coming out to give you some of my nice chocolate chip cookies as a thank you for being such a great guardian of this town!"

Ruby turned to see a blonde haired woman walking towards them holding a tray of rusted tin cans and looked at Evan mouthing "Is she fucking insane or stupid?". Evan shook his head as they saw a man walk out of the house towards the woman "Damnit Brailee you know we can't wander out of the house during a lockdown get the fuck back in here now!" Ruby felt her hand curl into a fist so tightly she felt her nails cut into her palm as she glared at the man who was now pulling the rather less-than intelligent wife of his or so she had assumed back into the house and slamming the door locking it.

She looked at Evan and tilted her head as he noticed the feral glint of anger in her eyes start to return and quickly began to explain. "That was the Ewers family Brailee's nice but…well… she's not the sharpest tool in the shed…you get my meaning?" Ruby opened her fist slightly and nodded calming down "Well why the fuck does she have a dick of a husband like that guy?" Evan sighed as he looked out over the overpass putting down his rifle. "A few years back Brailee was different, her and Ken were a happy couple together…hell they were even looking to start work on having a kid…until one day when some raiders attacked…god it was awful…we had more people then and well…lets just say Brailee took a nasty indirect hit from a sledgehammer causing her to have brain damage and now…well now she's the Brailee we know now." Ruby's eyes widened imagining a beautiful happy wife…so happy and carefree…ready to be a mother…and then to be nearly killed by a raider with a sledgehammer no less. Evan looked at the Ewers residence as he lit a cigarette. "Ken was a part of the volunteer guard at the time and when he saw Brailee's injuries well…he was devastated….when he yells at Brailee? That's just him blaming himself for not being fast enough to save her…"

Ruby looked down imagining the sadness and anguish Ken must have felt seeing his beloved wife like that. _Maxine…looks like your definitely not the only victim in this world…_ She thought as she remembered the beautiful scared young girl whom she promised to help save her and her sister from Evergreen Mills which was said to be the most heavily fortified raider encampment in the Capital Wasteland. She piped up as Evan went back to her task at hand, "If your looking for The Family…I can only think of 3 places they might be hiding…though I cant say for sure since they travel only at night." Ruby immediately perked up hearing that "Only at night…?!" She mumbled to herself as Evan continued "The best I can assume is that they are either at Moonbeam Outdoor Cinema, Hamilton's Hideaway, and Northwest Seneca Station." Ruby nodded as she marked the locations on her Pip-Boy map. She turned to see Karen walking towards her. "I heard every word and I'm sorry to say that your dog will have to stay here for the night to recover from his wounds."

Ruby winced in sadness and fear, not only for having to leave behind Dogmeat, but also the fact she was going to be alone finding The Family and that scared her a lot more than getting killed by Raiders or getting eaten by one of the Wasteland's many horrors. She slowly nodded and left Arefu without a word doing her best to force back the unbearable terror she was feeling in her heart.

As she traveled to the first location she noticed the clouds beginning to mass together as the beginning rumblings of thunder sounded again. _Oh great as if my day couldn't get any fucking worse…_ She thought and quickened her pace. When she arrived at the outdoor cinema however, she saw something she didn't expect to see. "Oh shit…!" between the two picnic tables standing at what she could swear was 15-17 feet tall was a Super Mutant, clad in giant sized boots, brown pants and makeshift metal armor as it turned towards her and snarled revving up its 5mm "Stonewall" Minigun. Ruby's eyes widened with horror as she immediately began running for cover desperately shooting at the monster with her hunting rifle however to no avail as the bullets hit their mark only for them to barely even phase the giant.

She barely had made it close to one of the nearby trucks when she felt what seemed like to her several dozen hot steaming rocks slam into her and once causing her to fall over screaming in agony. "AAUUGGGGHHHH! SON OF A BITCH IT HURTS!" After dropping her Hunting rifle in her fall she gazed in horror at her wounds as some of the bullets from the Mutant's burst had shredded most of what had been her armored vault suit and passed into her left arm, of her ribs, her stomach and she was sure a lung had been punctured as she was now coughing and wheezing up her own blood desperate on breathing. "Oh fuck….Oh god No….NO I CANT DIE HERE! NOT LIKE THIS!" as she took out Scarlet and began to desperately shoot at the Super Mutant as it stomped towards her giving off a victorious grunt scooping her up off the ground and batting the puny pistol out of her hand like it was a fly. She felt it begin to wrap her in a bear hug and start to squeeze her body tightly with its superhuman strength. _Oh God no! NO! its gonna snap me in two before he decides to devour me! _Ruby thought as she continued screaming in agony struggling in dismay.

The large mutant believed it had one as it clutched the stupid human female in its arms as she pointlessly and pointlessly screamed. His squeezing wasn't tight enough to crush her spine although it could feel her delicate skeleton groaning in its grip. It looked off towards the chapel where its brothers would be waiting…waiting to take the girl away and make another one of them… it had failed to see the glowing red eyes from the human's squishy face until it was too late as it saw a free arm holding a combat knife bury the blade into its skull through one of its eyes. It struggled as well, feeling the 200-year old blade squirm around scraping its perfect brain.

Ruby giggled as she continued jamming the blade of her knife through its eyes seeming to ignore her own critical wounds, not even feel the pain her own body was feeling as she howled in ecstasy at the mutant's suffering. "HAHAHAHAHAHA! THAT'S RIGHT! SQUIRM! SQUIRM LIKE THE ROTTEN HUNK OF FLESH YOU ARE! AHAHAHAHAHAHA!" And for the first time since the mutant had been a human being before the FEV fluids changed him, he stared up at the girl…no…the demon that was on her hands and knees on his chest after he released his grip of her laughing maniacally as she continued cutting into his brain. His last emotion…was pure and unbridled terror as he finally died.

Ruby continued to giggle and laugh as she took out the combat knife from his eye. "AHAHAHAHA SUCH FUN! SUCH FUN! THAT LOOK OF FEAR! THE HOPE OF SURVIVAL! ITS ALL SO FUCKING HILARIOUS! HAHAHAHAHAHA!" and licked the blood that was on her blade immediately spitting it out feeling the bitter taste of chemically modified crimson but continued laughing as she continued to Hamilton's Hideaway.

Sergeant Gareth was a cruel man by nature, but that's what Talon mercenaries were by nature, killing who they were hired to, stealing what they wanted, and just overall doing whatever the fuck most mercs refused to do. This job was no exception, he looked at the contract they were given by their mysterious client showing the picture of a gorgeously sexy young woman who looked to be in her late teens. Ruby Hanson, fresh out of a vault and evidently was already making a name for herself acting as if she were a saint. _Heh maybe before we kill her me and the boys can take turns on her some before we blow her brains out. _He thought chuckling as he looked at his squad mates while playing out the fantasy he was sure they were all having in their minds.

Their intel suggested she would be on her way to Northwest Seneca station tonight and so they camped out wondering if they captured the girl if they considered cutting off one of her ears, stripping her naked and selling her off to Paradise falls or even the Raiders at Evergreen Mills, Gareth heard all the stories of multiple raider tribes getting brutally wiped out all across the Wasteland. Fortunately when they all heard footsteps and saw her coming they all jumped with sadistic excitement looking forward to what they believed would happen next. Gareth walked up to her with a sleazy grin across his face as he examined her body up close noting the fresh wounds on her left side and her shredded vault suit as some blood had flowed down one of her pant legs giving it a crimson stripe while it continued to slightly drip off of her in other spots. He almost growled with excitement as he noticed her pale exposed cleavage now soaked in blood.

She seemed to stop and look up at them as if they were a sudden new phenomenon she stumbled upon. Gareth couldn't see her eyes due to the darkness as he grinned and said "Well Well if it isn't our little saint from the vault! We have been looking for you! Someone has put QUITE the price on your head…aww well I hear you could have been extremely useful to the right people you ready to die?" He said as he leveled his M4A1 at her head. The girl only smiled grinning from ear to ear as he noticed the bloody knife in her hand next to her holstered pistol. "Your looking for me….? ME?" and started to giggle as if her life being threatened was the best joke she'd heard ever. Gareth barely saw her twirl the combat knife into a reverse grip as she licked blood around her seductive lips and said. "You better be ready to kill something that's ALREADY DEAD!" and then Gareth suddenly fell as cold metal brushed along his jugular rapidly due to almost supernatural agility hearing maniacal laughter and terrified gunfire as his men were also slaughtered. His last sight was the girl walking down into the metro as everything went red…and then darkness…


	18. Chapter 18:The Dead girl

**Hey guys! So sorry about the longer than usual wait my internet has been dead for several days now this was simply what I was able to complete in the midst of that time I have already begun work on chapter 19 so expect that by this weekend at the very least. Thanks so much for your patience guys! ****J**

Barrett was just your typical ghoul trying to survive in a post apocalyptic hell-hole that didn't give two shits about him or his kind. Ever since the bombs fell him and his best friend Murphy had left the Army after they saw that their unit was scared shitless and were dropping like flies due to radiation. The both of them knew they were feeling it too and weren't about to stick around to join with the rest of the fold so as the last two survivors of Bravo Company in 2nd battalion 3rd Regiment of the Big Red One they set out to find a way to survive in the new world that awaited them. Murphy who had been the former medic of their unit took to chems and began to work out ways that they would be more effective when used by ghouls as they'd normally be with humans or "smooth skins" as most ghouls took to calling them. _200 years and every flesh rotten ghoul like us seem to want to forget that we used to be smooth skins ourselves, whatever helps them sleep at night I guess I certainly don't give a fuck. _Barrett thought as he watched Murphy working on his latest project at making Ultrajet in the dim lighting of the office room they settled down in in the Northwest Seneca Station.

Barrett had grown not to trust anyone in the Wasteland except Murphy as they were forced to deal with bigot Wastelanders, raiders, and other assholes that always tried to come down and shake them down of the chems Murphy always carried. "Seems like just yesterday I was prepping up a batch of psycho and buffout for the guys at Fort Bragg huh Barrett?" Murphy asked as he stopped his work to take a short break. Barrett groaned remembering the smiling faces of everyone they knew back at Fort Bragg. "Yeah…everything seemed so much easier then…of course our own commanding officers were a bunch of old paranoid jerk offs who couldn't sneeze or shit without screaming 'it's a Commie spy!' or 'arrest that man for treason against the USA!'" Murphy and Barrett always hated when they heard that, it was annoying and their "arrests" always led to some good people getting jailed. He took out a pack of Camel cigarettes, "Hey Doc I'm gonna go out for a smoke real quick." Murphy nodded as he went back to his work and he went out into the main hallway leading into the now caved-in metro standing near one of the burning barrels that he had lit when they first set up shop so they wouldn't be blinded in the darkness.

It wasn't long before he heard the echo of gunfire coming from outside as he quickly stomped out his cigarette and took out his M4 crouching behind the sandbags he set up waiting for something or someone to come through the rusting metal gates of the front entrance. What he saw and heard next unnerved him to his very core. As he heard the gates grind and screech open and then closed in the darkness he saw a bright lone green light stumbling along as he heard what sounded to him as a playful childish giggle slowly silencing itself as if the owner was running out of breath. What came next was a heavy stench of blood in the air as he realized that whoever came into the metro was both completely mental and was bleeding badly. As he rose up to aim his rifle at the light he saw Murphy slowly step out of the office as he was smelling the heavy stench of blood too. "Who the hell is that…?" he whispered as he grasped a sawed-off shotgun. Barrett shook his head signaling for Murphy to get down next to him "I don't fucking know…! What I do know is that he's gonna attract a lot of unwanted attention if we don't get rid of him quick…!" He said switching the safety on his rifle off.

' That's when they both heard the nearby Mole Rats shriek and run towards the source of the bloody scent they had caught onto. They both figured that'd be the end of their unexpected visitor but instead heard gunshots and what sounded to them as a feral howl of excitement as the childish giggling turned into a loud shriek of psychotic laughter silencing the Mole Rats. Barrett closed his eyes as he felt his hands shaking. _Whatever the fuck killed those Mole Rats cant be human…that laughter…the giggling…and that howl…? No fucking way that could have come from a human. _He saw the fear in Murphy's eyes as well as the two readied themselves preparing for the eventual confrontation with the approaching figure. The giggling soon died down into a pained groan as they heard "S-Someone….help…." and then a loud thud as Barrett looked to see the moving green light from before now on the ground and unmoving. Barrett could barely make out a feminine human figure at the edge of the fire light as he took turned on the flashlight of his rifle and steadily began to walk towards the figure cautiously. "What the hell are you doing Barrett?!" Murphy cried as he ran after him still terrified of what they had heard.

Barrett ignored him as he shined his flashlight on the figure and almost choked back the cough rising in his rotted throat from the overwhelming scent of blood seeing the body of a young woman. "Jesus Christ Murphy…it's a kid…!" Murphy came up beside him and recoiled from the scent as well coughing. "Holy shit…! She's literally covered in blood…!" Murphy grumbled. Barrett bent down examining the girl's gear as he could barely make out the _101_ symbol on the back of her tattered and blood-soaked clothing. _This girl is packing some serious heat, and she looks hell… _He thought as he examined her wounds. "Fuck…over a dozen 5mm rounds through one whole side of her body…" He whispered. Murphy crouched down beside him examining her. "She's a vault girl too…! When's the last time we heard about one of those coffins opening?" Murphy asked looking at him. "About 80 years ago give err' take." He answered as they both noticed the girl's strangely albino-like skin. Murphy suddenly felt a desire to help the girl as he unbuckled her pack sliding it off and putting it aside taking care to be gentle with the equipment he felt that was inside. "Help me turn her over Barrett." Barrett groaned despite himself feeling respect for the girl as they rolled her over onto her back gazing despite themselves at the girl's large neon white cleavage splattered with blood that had traveled down from her full and alluring lips. Murphy gasped as he checked her pulse. "Holy fuck….has she been feeding on blood…? Human Blood…?" Barrett looked away from the sight choking back the tears in his eyes pissed off at this new world of theirs had ripped away the innocence of another human being.

As Murphy checked her pulse caressing the veins on her neck they both heard the girl gasp and moan in pain in her unconscious state. "Holy shit…!" was all they both could say as they picked her up and carried her into the office to patch up her wounds and clean the blood off of her as best they could. Murphy cleaned off one of the tables of his experiments as Barrett set her body down. "I'll go grab her gear" Barrett said as he walked back out to pick up the pistol the girl had been carrying and her pack. That's when he noticed with his flashlight the trail of blood that their new guest had left behind leading all the way back out to the entrance. He decided to investigate stepping out into the cold desert night of the wasteland where he saw the corpses of an entire squad of Talon mercenaries, each of them carrying only a slash wound across the jugular causing small pools of blood under their heavily armed bodies. _That one girl killed an entire squad of the most hated mercenary company in the whole wasteland with just a knife…_ He thought in disbelief and shivered at the thought of the damage she could have done to him and Murphy had she attacked them as well. As he followed the crimson trail he saw that it lead out far into the wasteland. "My God…she should be dead right now…" He whispered and turned back into the station returning her equipment into the office and going back out for another smoke…hell even several drinks to forget the horrifying sight he saw.

Murphy Donald had already set to work on patching the girl up of her wounds as he took out scissors and began to cut away the tattered buckles of her vault suit that were probably used in a makeshift armor. It scared him as he took note of how unnaturally smooth her skin felt as he wiped away some of the blood on her body. The process only lasted a few hours until finally he sat back in his chair staring at the now sleeping girl bandaged up in her wounds as he had wrapped her arm in a tourniquet and a medical brace to help the bones inside regenerate from the stimpaks he injected. "If she's from a vault and fed on human blood…jeez this is someone Vance would love to meet…" He mumbled as he thought of The Family, the strange heavily armed gang him and Barrett carried a rather…uncomfortable territory agreement with.

Barrett had already told him of the dead Talon mercenaries outside and the girl's blood trail that had most likely went for miles as he rolled himself in his desk chair over to their radio and began calling over to Meresti Station where The Family's hideout was located. He shifted uncomfortably as he heard the girl giggle softly in her sleep mumbling about some girl named Amata as he heard a young man answer the radio. "Hello? This is Alan of The Family what is the nature of your transmission?" Murphy had then explained their situation to Alan as he heard the boy gasp under his breath listening intently. "Holy crap…alright Murphy hold on I'll talk to Vance…"

Alan Harker ran up the powered down escalator as soon as he heard the news from Murphy over the radio. _Could the girl that Murphy's talking about be the one that Brianna and I saw?! _He thought remembering the sight of the teenager relentlessly torturing a group of female raiders that looked about as young as she was. He remembered the animalistic look in her eyes as she fed off of each of the girl's blood as she took turns having sex with them. He soon found their leader Vance stepping out of his quarters as he saw Alan running towards him. "Calm yourself Alan what seems to be the trouble my son?" He asked his smooth charismatic voice immediately soothing Alan's nerves. "Murphy and Barrett found that girl you told me and Brianna to watch that went to Arefu. He says that she is in critical condition but is recovering as we speak." Vance perked up with curiosity as he felt the soft and silky hands of his beloved wife step out and hug his neck whispering. "Who is coming my dear count…?" Vance chuckled at her joke as he turned to her kissing her softly. "I do believe Erzebet' Bathory herself has finally risen from her grave and is coming to us my sweet…" He felt the name for the girl was appropriate given Alan and Brianna's unnerved reconnaissance report after following the girl while hunting for some fresh blood to feed on. Vance then turned to Alan as his expression turned serious. "Have Murphy send her to us as soon as she recovers do you understand?" Alan quickly nodded and went back to the radio to tell Murphy the news.

Murphy felt his body run cold as soon as he heard the news and turned towards the sleeping maiden on the table. "Kid if only you knew the kind of people that want to meet you…"


	19. Chapter 19:What are you?

Murphy had just finished cleaning up his syringes as Barrett returned from his break looking unnerved. "What is it now Barrett? Your usually cool as a cucumber even when we have a guest." Barrett stomped out his last cigarette grumbling, "I'm beginning to think someone or something followed that girl here." Murphy put down his syringes and looked up at Barrett. "Like what? We haven't heard any animals beating down the gate hell we are lucky some Super Mutants didn't follow that trail." Barrett kicked up one of the chairs and sat down beginning to clean his rifle. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you anyway." Now Murphy was curious, he'd heard some weird and creepy stories that happened on the frontlines before but he always a skeptic to see if any of them held merit. "Try me Foley." He said using Barrett's last name as he leaned forward listening to Barrett tell him what happened.

_2 hours earlier_

Murphy was just finishing his treatment on their newest guest and had been in communication with The Family as Barrett stepped out again for a smoke and to watch in case anything followed the girl's bloody trail. He clicked off the safety of his rifle readying himself for the worst as he puffed out some smoke. It wasn't long before he heard a soft pitter pattering of bare feet moving around in the darkness. He raised his weapon into the darkness assuming it was one of his feral brethren wandering too close to their camp most likely smelling the smooth human flesh inside. He waited for the eventual screech of hunger he expected to come. However all he could hear was the pitter pattering footsteps, he then realized that he wasn't hearing the heavy rapid breathing of a feral ghoul either. _Shit…who the hell could have followed her then?_ He thought as he heard the footsteps soon stop. He switched on his flashlight as he called out into the darkness. "Is someone there?" He asked as he kept his rifle at the ready as he began to venture into the darkness.

He looked around feeling a pair of eyes on him followed by a voice. _Hey mister…_the soft voice whispered. _Come over here…._ He quickly turned shining the flashlight at the source as he saw a little girl who looked to be barely 8 or 10 years old. She had long raven black hair flowing down to her sides causing her eyes to be shadowed within her bangs. She wore a long black dress that was heavily tattered as if she had just survived a heavy scuffle. Barrett also took note of her eerily pale skin dusted with what looked to be ashes as her little bare feet were caked in blood as if she was a survivor of a horrific massacre. "How the hell did you get here kid…? Its dangerous out here you know…!" That was when he noticed a big lump of flesh that the girl was standing in front of was one of the very Mole Rats that the girl from earlier killed in her animalistic psychotic rage. _What the fuck…_was his only thought as the girl looked up at him as his flashlight showed her dull red eyes. That was when Barrett pieced the puzzle before him together. This little girl looked exactly alike the young teenager they had resting back in their camp!

As if confirming his thoughts the little girl stepped forward as she smiled widely the edge of her lips spreading into an eerie ear-to-ear grin. _You better take care of me…._She whispered and began to giggle shooting him the deadliest of glares. _Or I'll wring both yours and your friend's filthy rotten necks…!_ and then began laughing loudly vanishing into black petals of ash.

_Present _

Murphy was speechless staring at Barrett as he finished his story. A little ghostly twin? It all sounded too freaky to be true, it reminded him a lot of the horror movies he used to watch with his girlfriend anytime he was out on leave. Barrett then went silent as he continued cleaning his rifle wanting to forget what he saw completely. Murphy turned and looked at the sleeping 19-year old girl on the table. _Just who or what the hell are you….?_ He thought and went to cook some of the rations they gathered.

_3 years ago_

James was just finishing his checkup on his now 16-year old daughter Ruby Hanson. Aside from the usual troubles she'd been having including her rather…large chest which had already grown into a double D-cup he'd noticed some strange anomalies within her blood. _I always wondered about her unnaturally pale skin and the eyes she's carried since she was a baby but this could be troubling in and of itself…_His daughter spoke up with a fake raspy tone pretending to cough. "So what's the diagnosis Doc? Am I goin back to the front?" She said with a rather sly grin across her lips. James narrowed his eyes at her annoyed yet impressed with how his daughter was able to keep up this charade. "Well as far as I can tell you're a perfectly healthy 16-year old girl so yes you have to go to class to take your GOAT exam. Ruby's face fell in shock in disappointment realizing he saw through her ploy and continued to fake a cough and sniffle. "But I really AM sick Dad! Really…" and puffed out her most attractive pout that was able to get her out of trouble with the other boys in the Vault. James sighed shaking his head. "No you are not. Really." then he patted her shoulder. "Hey no worries its all something we got to do at some point and after all is said and done its not so bad." Ruby's face fell even further, _that's the one line you NEVER say in an anime! Because every time you say "its not so bad" it only turns out worse!_ Ruby thought nervously and then sighed beginning to walk out and then stopped as she noticed her dad's medicine bobble head on his desk.

She promptly picked it up looking at him. "Hey Dad mind if I hang onto this for good luck?" James nodded and smirked in a fatherly satisfaction as he watched his daughter's face beam with delight. "Okay thanks so much Dad! Love ya!" and put on her Japanese school girl cosplay glasses taking on the role of the studious schoolgirl as she pocketed the bobble head walking out taking care not to run into Jonas as she flashed him a cocky grin. It was a mediocre day but she was cool with it, meanwhile her dad James in the midst of sharing his findings on successfully completing Project Purity with Jonas also worried of his daughter's "gifted" cells.

As Ruby turned the corner towards class she noticed at the far end of the hallway was the infamous Tunnel Snakes who were evidently busy shaking down one of her fellow classmates. She shrugged as she felt her fingers curl into fists feeling her deep-seeded hatred for Butch Deloria and his two thugs Paul Hannon and Wally Mack. What she heard next made her snap as she felt her own inner darkness creeping around her. "Get out of my way you stupid Tunnel Snakes!" said a very familiar voice. Ruby didn't have to guess who they were shaking down as she rapidly marched towards them and saw the wide sleazy grin on Butch's face as Wally cheered him on. "I can show you a REAL Tunnel Snake Amata if you feel like skipping class you'll see three of em." Paul shrunk away in disgust at Butch's snide and crudely perverted offer and saying he'd be involved in it. He turned just quick enough to see Ruby rapidly charging in without so much as a sound her long raven-black bangs hiding the murderous intent on her face like curtains.

He jumped out of the way fast enough to see Ruby land a brutally hard punch into Butch's ribs hearing a loud crack as he doubled over in shock coughing up blood. "Spirit" is what most of the vault took to calling Ruby as a result of the self-defense martial arts and CQC skills Gomez and the other security officers took to teaching her after she was assigned to that sector for volunteer duty. Although now she looked like an angry vengeful wraith out to claim Butch and Wally's mortal souls. Which to him just made her even more terrifying ever since they were children she always had an uncanny ability of vanishing in and out of the dark shadows of the vault. Also due to her extremely protective streak over Amata she was basically mentally unstable. Although he personally liked her, he never dared to mess with her or Amata, all he wanted was to hang out and be friends just like he was with Wally and Butch. However, ever since Butch made both Ruby and Amata the main targets of his malicious bullying when they were barely elementary school kids on the playground their conflicts just got more and more violent. He got up and out of the way as Ruby continued punching Butch despite his best efforts to fight back only to barely bruise or scratch Ruby's unnaturally beautiful pale skin. He snuck past Wally who had been in a panic before jumping into the fight in an attempt to save his "boss". _And the drooling naïve gullible dog runs in a futile attempt to save his master._ Paul thought as he walked up to Amata who only stared at the carnage unfolding as blood splashed onto the walls from Ruby's rage and Wally and Butch's desperate and prideful attempt at not losing the fight against her.

"Hey Amata are you alright?" was all he said as he saw the worried terror in her eyes not only for Ruby but begrudgingly and he was sure she'd deny it that she was worried for his two compatriots as well. Amata suddenly ran in as their teacher came out and was about to run to get security when Amata grabbed hold of Ruby crying. "Stop it! Stop it Ruby! You have done enough! You saved me!" Ruby suddenly stopped and looked at Amata's tear-filled eyes as Paul noticed her sparkling ruby red ones beginning to tear up as well. "Oh god Amata I'm so sorry you had to see that…!" And hugged her tightly as the two stood there in a deep embrace. Butch and Wally both had suffered a dislocated jaw, several cracked ribs and one broken arm as they lay on the ground broken and bleeding. Meanwhile Ruby had caught a black eye, several bruises and a dislocated arm in which she had only just begun to feel the pain. Paul Hannon shivered as he watched Ruby Hanson cradle the crying Overseer's daughter in her arms like a lover as he thought _Just what the hell are you Ruby?_

_Present_

Ruby quickly rose from her dream sweating at the memory she just remembered and hissed in pain grasping Murphy's bandages that had been placed on her minigun bullet wounds. "Sonuva bitch that hurts…" was all she could say as she groaned and saw a ghoul in a white blood soaked shirt and glasses staring at her from a desk chair as he leaned forward with his peeling hands on his pants. "Ahh your finally awake I see…" he said as if he just drove her home from a drunken party. "Take it easy on the bandages I jammed several stimpaks into you your wounds are healing but they will take time." he said taking on a role as if he were personal doctor and she was in for a checkup. _With all the damn good that did me her body seemed like it was regenerating and healing itself right as I was beginning my work on her. _She seemed to be ignoring him as she rubbed her eyes letting out a "Nyaaa…" as she yawned and then looked at him realizing he was the one that patched her up. "Umm thanks Doc but mind if I ask what the fuck happened to me…? I remember the Super Mutant…some guys in black armor that were HUGE assholes to me…then I entered the station and now I'm here?" He chuckled as she scanned her surroundings noticing Barrett off in the corner cleaning his M4. He noticed her wide excited smile as if she were a child looking at the newest product in the toy store. "I'm Murphy and that's Barrett you kinda sorta collapsed in front of the front door to our camp after we watched you kill a whole pack of Mole Rats by yourself. Your vault suit was so bloody I had to cut away the top and throw it away before the blood attracted more predators." That's when Ruby perked up realizing the cold tingle of air looking down at herself seeing that the entire top half of her vault suit had indeed been cut away leaving only her dark grey tank top to cover her breasts as well as the said-patch work bandages Murphy had placed on her. Ruby blushed heavily with embarrassment as she quickly caressed her long hair down to her front to cover some of her cleavage and skin.

Barrett grunted trying not to chuckle at the young teenager's embarrassment as she attempted to shield herself. It was something he once found attractive when he was human with his wife at home during the times he caught her intentionally undressing with the door open shielding herself but seductively smiling all the same. _Damn I miss you Claudia…_ He thought and then noticed the girl lustfully gazing at his rifle as drool almost fell from her lips. "You have an M4A1...!" She whispered excitedly trembling as she began to go into a long rant about the gun's history and how it was one of her personal favorites. Murphy nodded to Barrett as if saying _Just play along we gotta remember this girl is seriously fucking mental. _Ruby quickly composed herself as she introduced herself to the two ghouls explaining her mission as the ghouls took care not to ask her about the mysterious ghost girl Barrett saw. Ruby then quickly took a quick drink of water as she calmed down over her excitement of Barrett's rifle. "Aaannddd that's about it! That's who I'm lookin for and I was wondering if you guys had any info on em!"

Murphy quickly piped up before she became distracted again. "As a matter of fact I do we kinda have a uneven 'you don't bother us we don't bother you' agreement with them." And stood up as she got to her feet dusting her now makeshift pants off grabbing her pack. He then walked into a side room where a hatch lay having small puddles of radioactive slime around it along with a toxic waste barrel beside it. "That passageway leads directly to Meresti station you can't miss it." Ruby nodded doing a quick weapons maintenance check on Scarlet and her hunting rifle whimpering at how battered the poor thing looked. "Thanks Doc Murphy if you need anything for me to return the favor for showing me this and.. well saving my life as well just lemme know." An idea popped into Murphy's head as she said that. "Hey as a matter of fact I am in need of some help with a special project I've been working on." And began going into the details with her of him making Ultra Jet.

An hour had passed after Ruby returned to their camp from looting the squad of Talon mercenaries above grinning stupidly as she cradled the former Sergeant Gareth's M4A1 in her arms. _He may have been a jerk off but he really did take good care of his rifle. _And giggled to herself waving goodbye to the ghouls as she climbed down through the hatch and into the consuming darkness leading to The Family. She had no idea they'd be waiting for her…


	20. Chapter 20:The Lord and Countess

When Ruby finally reached the bottom of the ladder she was overwhelmed by the rotting scent of dead flesh and all encompassing cavern darkness besides the little glowing mushrooms that dotted the floor and walls. She also took note of the heavy stench of crab in the air which meant one thing, Mirelurks were nearby. _Now if only it wasn't so damned dark_ she thought as she fought back the urge to turn on her pip-boy light and hope for the best. As she cautiously traversed the small cavern she felt a small soft hand grasp hers and pull her into even deeper shadows as she saw one of the said-mire lurks passing through where she had just been standing as its narrow mouth gurgled alert for any intruders into its home.

Ruby took a quick sigh of relief watching it pass but then wondered who her mysterious savior was. She looked around feeling for another human body until finally she heard a giggle next to her and then was hit with a scent of ash. _What the fuck…? That giggle sounded so familiar…_and immediately thought of the little girl she saw in Minefield and began to shiver in fear as she noticed the cavern's exit up into the metro tunnel. She crouched down and snuck up to the exit taking care to avoid alerting the other Mirelurks stopping dead short suddenly as she saw a thin glint reflected in the dim light of the Metro tunnel. _Fuck…a tripwire…._She thought as all the horrible fates the soldiers met with tripwire traps in the war movies she had seen. She heard wet slops behind her turning to see one of the Mirelurks walking in her direction. "Shit…" was all she whispered and began to think quickly before it spotted her deciding to take the unfortunate risk of cutting the wire and hoping to god what followed took care of the problem walking up on her ass.

She took out her combat knife and pressed up against the wall as she quickly cut the wire. What happened next sent her into self-preservation mode as she heard the metal pattering of grenades hitting the ground and bouncing down the slope. She immediately thought of the standard time it takes on the fuse of a standard U.S. Army issue fragmentation grenade as she ran as fast as she could up the slope just before the resulting clustered explosion caused the tunnel to shake behind her. She stumbled and caught herself on one of the walls gasping for breath when she noticed a mine in front of her hidden amongst some clutter and tin cans. "Holy shit…that came so close to biting me in the ass…"

It was at that moment she deeply wished her canine companion and currently one of the closest friends she had in the Wasteland was with her right now. "Good ol' Dogmeat would warn me if there was a mine I was about to step on…He'd even catch me too if I was going to fall on one…" and sat down almost jumping at seeing a large Mirelurk corpse on the rusted subway metro tracks in front of her. "Someone really didn't want you coming out of the nest huh buddy?" she said noting the various scars of damaged carapace armor and missing bits of its large shell, from its large spiked mass she guessed it to be a higher ranking creature in its pack.

She groaned standing up grasping her waist on her bandages seeing the long dark passageway amongst abandoned train cars. _This can only be a wonderful sign of things to come…_ She thought hopping over a bear trap and stepping into the long narrow subway tunnel.

_1 hour later_

Finally after what felt like hours getting shaved off her already ever so short lifespan she could literally see light at the end of the tunnel. "Oh thank god…with all the traps back there they must be paranoid.." She mumbled and stopped short of the large sandbags as a red haired young man rose up from behind them focusing his 10mm SMG at her head. "Whoa whoa where the hell do you think your going?" He said as he rested his gloved finger on the trigger. Ruby winced as she raised her hands examining the man noticing his Pre-War U.S. Army combat armor and his headband. _Someone thinks their a badass…though I guess its for good reason I can already tell he can take more bullets than I can. _She thought as she turned innocent and diplomatic, "Umm I'm just here looking for The Family that's all I don't want to hurt anyone." and flashed a flirty wink at him.

He stopped as if caught off guard by Ruby's innocent flirtatious mode and then lowered his weapon. "You must be the girl Vance was expecting…" And looked at her up and down as she stepped closer into the light mouthing a "damn…!" as he began mentally undressing her with his eyes before showing her the way towards the hideout. Ruby was speechless with confusion as the man who introduced himself as Robert specifically warned her to speak with the leader of the Family named Vance first before doing anything else.

Robert chuckled watching the girl staring at her ass as she stepped through the door to the hideout. "Just another perk about being in the most badass gang in the whole wasteland." He whispered and went back to his post gulping down some of the blood in his canteen.

Thoughts swirled in Ruby's mind as she walked through the short tunnel towards the lights she saw ahead giving signs of habitation. _Holy shit…Whelp I definitely found The Family…that means Ian oughta be around here somewhere._ She felt pairs of eyes on her from the various members as if confirming Robert's statement of them knowing of her impending arrival. She looked up between the escalators seeing a man in a long worn duster coat staring down at her as a young woman walked up beside him hugging onto his arm but focusing her eyes on Ruby as well.

It shook her body to its core feeling all these eyes gazing upon her with such fascination and suspicion. Some even wandered looking towards the man staring down at her as if waiting for approval to approach the girl. Ruby quietly stepped up the dead mechanical stairs towards the man and woman. "You must be Vance, the leader of The Family. She said catching a glimpse of a sword beneath the man's coat as she mentally told herself that this man, if crossed was to be considered feared and extremely dangerous.

His voice alone confirmed her suspicions as he turned towards who she assumed was his wife. "Holly my dear go calm everyone and please tell them they have nothing to fear from our new visitor." He said his voice rolling out in a smooth seductive tone making Ruby nearly stumble with weakness. The pale blond haired beauty smiled, "Alright Vance my love, I shall go soothe the worries of the rest of the flock." and went into the shadows walking down one of the escalators.

_Damnit…a handsome guy that's covered with an insane amount of charisma…I don't usually drool over guys either!_ She thought quickly regaining her composure trying to keep her legs upright as they felt like water to his voice. He looked at her as his chocolate brown eyes attempted to pierce her crimson ones. "And you…you must be the Erzebet' Bathory incarnate Alan and Brianna spoke of…might I say it is an honor to welcome the Blood Countess herself into the bowels of Meresti."

Ruby was even more taken aback at Vance's name for her as she remembered seeing a dark figure retreating away towards the Potomac that night when she had first fed from those girls in the Sluggers Raider tribe at Kaelyn's Bed and Breakfast. _I still feel weird after getting the taste of all the damn chems those girls took as raiders. Furthermore this guy had his people watching me the whole time?! I am at a huge disadvantage here._ She thought as she struggled to come up with a response. "W-Well my real name is Ruby Hanson…I'm impressed with your knowledge of literature Vance but why give me the name of history's most successful murderer?"

Vance smiled and ran his hand through his impressively groomed auburn hair as if in thought for a moment and answered. "Why Alan and Brianna both saw how you tortured those raider women and proceeded to have sex with each of them as you bit into their wounds and their necks to devour their blood. They saw that insane joyful look of blissful ecstasy and madness on your face. And to top it all off your beauty has caught the attention of myself and every single member of The Family." Ruby blinked again wincing as she felt the man's silky watery words sink into her very being as she confirmed everything he had just said to her. _No! No! You cant let this guy distract you from what your really here for Ruby!_ She thought as she decided to slip into her own silver tongue. "My My…" She purred rolling out the arsenal that was her own charismatic personality. "You have me at a severe disadvantage Vance…I have traveled long and far you see, and as you may have noticed by my wounds it was not an easy one. However I came here hoping to find a young boy by the name of Ian West. I carry a message from his lovely maiden of a sister Lucy West carrying deep concern for his and their family's safety.

This made Vance frown in deep regret whether it be from meeting a person who was as charismatic as he was or from something else she couldn't tell. "I see…then you must have seen the bodies of his parents…a very tragic event I assure you…" Ruby tilted her head putting on a sweet smile as he read the curiosity in her eyes. "It was not our doing I'm afraid…It was an incident that shouldn't have occurred for you see…Ian was overcome with the 'urge' for human flesh." Ruby gasped in shock remembering the blood spattered walls of the West home, the signs of a struggle, and the inherent scratch wounds on the family's bodies that accompanied the bite marks on their necks. "You mean…Ian's a cannibal…?" she whispered silently.

Vance shot a sharp glare of venom at her at the mention of the word "cannibal" as he said. "He was then…though now he will no longer be labeled as such. I will see to that he only feeds on blood not the flesh of others. On that night I was going to visit with the boy when I saw him crouched over the bodies of his mother and father attempting to rip the flesh from his father's arm. I quickly took action and made it seem as if my flock committed the deed and spirited him away back here to Meresti."

Ruby listened with fascination and with horror imagining the terror and sadness poor Ian must have felt when he violently attacked his own family. "So you see I cannot allow you to visit him he's in a deep meditation stage of ridding himself of the horrible beastly urge that has made him suffer so." He said as he saw the sadness appear in Ruby's eyes and he felt an extreme guilt as if he were seeing his own wife weeping in front of him due to his decision. "However I will let you see him on one condition…since its clearly obvious your one of us." He said as he smiled at the benefit he was getting behind his kind offer.

Ruby looked at him eyes wide and sparkling with expectation. "What would that be?" She asked putting on a coy mask of deception behind her pale face, Vance smiled more widely almost excited at the warrior maiden he was about to gain within his flock. "Join The Family and I shall allow you to deliver Ian his sister's message."


	21. Chapter 21: Welcome to The Family

"Join the Family?!" Ruby yelped taken aback at Vance's offer. She took a moment to lean over the railing and look out over the large dark makeshift recreational area that the entrance from where she came from entered. She knew that when she first entered the main area she couldn't help but feel a sense of belonging, like these people were almost like her in a way. Though she could feel the fear tugging at her heart that if she accepted Vance's offer and joined his gang he wouldn't allow her to leave and continue her search for her dad. Vance noticed her fear as he softly patted her back affectionately like a father, "I shall let you think about it, take as much time as you need dearest Ruby." and then walked away seeming to leave for his quarters.

"I hate staying in a single place…" Ruby mumbled as she walked down to where the other members were doing their own activities and sat down alone amongst one of the metro waiting benches. _If I join and stay…he might not let me look for dad…and if I don't join he wont let me see Ian…damnit for once I cant think of anything to tempt him with that would be more interesting other than me joining him! _Ruby thought angrily grasping her head in frustration. She felt the tears rising up in her eyes not only at being beaten in a battle of wits but also at the thought of sacrificing her mission to find her dad. "Damnit…Damnit….Damnit…!" She whispered trembling as she tried forcing back the tears. Suddenly she felt a presence beside her as she looked up seeing Vance's wife Holly looking at her with a concerned smile. "You look troubled and like your suffering." She said and sat down next to her patting her thigh like a mother consoling her child. "As you probably heard from Vance my name is Holly if it'll help you can tell me what troubles you so dear Ruby."

Ruby sighed and began to tell Holly her story so far, of how she ended up in the Wasteland, what she was doing, and everything that had lead her up to the point of finding them and their hideout. Holly hugged her tightly softly rubbing her back. "You poor girl…such a long and rough road you have been on…" She whispered purring softly in her ear keeping her lips close to the nape of her neck. Ruby shivered at this advance blushing heavily, she had barely met Holly and she already liked her. "Hey Holly? Won't your husband get angry with you?" She whispered as she lightly pulled Holly away from her. Holly smiled taking her hand, "Vance has his own controversial beliefs just as he knows I have an unorthodox way of doing things, now come along with me and lets get those bandages off." Ruby was relieved when Holly decided to remove her bandages, the sweat she'd accumulated from traveling through the tunnels had caused her bandages on her wounds to become wet and rough which she was sure wasn't doing her bullet wounds any favors. She was also glad to have gotten Holly to stop what she was doing to her, _Uhhh fuck what she did felt so kinky and so good it gave my body chills! _She thought softly purring to herself recovering from Holly.

She followed the blonde back upstairs which lead into a private rest area for the other members and took out a battery light turning it on. "So your from a Vault huh?" She asked grabbing some scissors. Ruby nodded as she sat down on one of the single beds laying down her pack as she waited for Holly to come to her. "I hated it there…Almost everyone but my dad and Amata looked at me like I was different…some kind of monster…" Holly nodded as she walked over sitting next to Ruby and began carefully cutting off the bandages that were stuck and peeled off the others.

"I'm also wondering how you came upon desiring blood so quickly, I mean everyone in The Family is an ex-cannibal yet from Alan and Brianna's report as well as looking at you right now you don't seem like you have ever eaten human flesh." She said as she unwrapped Ruby's dirty bandages gasping quietly at her rapidly healed bullet wounds. "Well I'm not completely sure myself…ever since I was little I haven't been the most sane person alive, hell in some cases people would be terrified of me because of it." Holly stared at her fascinated with Ruby's story and examined her eyes. _Such beautiful eyes…yet they look so sad…I can also see the darkness and madness in them….Vance was right to dub her the way he did…_ She thought as she stared at the girl. "I think what really did it was when I was helping Moira in Megaton with her book the Wasteland Survival Guide…I had purposely gotten myself exposed to a little over 600 rads which nearly killed me, after she cured me I started feeling weird pains in my throat." Holly nodded "What kind of pains?" she asked, Ruby looked into her eyes as she continued. "Like every time I'd look at a person…whether it be a kid, man, woman hell even a ghoul my throat would start burning like it was on fire…and well…when I saw that Raider tribe do what they did to those poor people well…I snapped."

Holly touched her shoulder and softly kissed her cheek. "Thank you very much for sharing your story Ruby if you need more time to think about my husband's offer feel free to get to know the other members and have them give you their stories on how they joined." and stood up waving goodbye as Ruby watched her scurry up the escalator most likely to report to her husband. So Ruby decided to do as she said and go around to get to know the other members, Alan and Justin were really sweet guys to her which made Ruby feel as if they were residents of Vault 101 like her, they'd be good friends for her and Amata to hang out with. Karl however was a huge asshole, nice enough to strike up business with if he wasn't sizing her body up for a meal or for a good fucking, it was clear to her that whatever teachings Vance gave to the members, Karl obviously didn't believe in them and only pretended to so he could strike up business. And last but not least was Brianna, the prostitute of the gang who REALLY struck her with all the lusty signals. _Maybe she goes for gals too? Ill have to ask her about it sometime. _She thought putting off a stupid grin to herself as she walked around looking for Vance.

She found him in his usual spot except he turned to face her as if knowing what she was about to say. "Vance I…I've decided to accept your offer and join The Family but-!" Vance held up his hand smiling as he said "I am glad you have decided to accept my offer dearest crimson-eyed Elizabeth and you need not fear, my wife told me of your story and of your personal quest." Ruby gasped in delight covering her mouth staring at him. "So does that mean you wont confine me here in Meresti?" Vance nodded feeling both sadness and warmth in his heart knowing he was going to lose a member of his flock but gain a newer and powerful warrior. "No it was never my intention to confine you here, normally you'd follow my orders to the letter, however upon first seeing you I could tell you were more of a wanderer, that you are destined to do great and extraordinary things in this Wasteland." Ruby squealed happily hugging Vance as if he were her dad. Vance chuckled as he continued, "Go visit young Ian and when you return we shall discuss our business with the town of Arefu." Ruby rapidly nodded and ran off to where Ian was being kept seeing Holly waiting at the door. She looked at her and smiled unlocking the door to his room. "I shall wait for you until your done there's something I want to give you as a gift from us." Ruby giggled too giddy to act serious as she stepped into Ian's room finding the young teenager eating a Brahmin Steak.

"Hello Ian West, I'm Ruby Hanson…and might I say you have been a bitch to find!" She said jokingly as Ian chuckled standing up and shaking her hand his tanned caucasian skin feeling calloused on her palm. "I guess that'd be Vance's fault for being underground huh?" He said as he chuckled and then sighed. "I guess that means if you're here then that means Evan must be really pissed at me right now…I'm afraid I cant go back, I'm a fucking freak, a monster, a total damn mutant. If it wasn't for The Family I'd say I shouldn't even be alive!" Ruby snarled as she raised her hand slapping him hard across the face leaving a large red welt darkening his already tanned cheek. She glared at him as she yelled, "Are you fucking listening to yourself?! Your being stupid! Vance told me everything that happened and you know what I think?! I think you were scared! Scared shitless because you confessed to them what you were and you thought they'd reject you!" Ian grasped his cheek his eyes burning with the oncoming tears that were forming. "Of course I was fucking scared! They didn't even reject me either but I still lost it and attacked them! You yourself probably know what a horrible beast I am now!" Ruby clenched her fist feeling the tears welling up in her eyes as well wanting so much to knock some sense into him as she reached into her pocket pulling out Lucy's letter giving it to him, "I got this from your sister, she misses you idiot…! She still loves you! Your really gonna do that crap to her?!" Ian read the letter and looked down sighing, "Damnit…. I miss her too…there's no way I'd want her to see me like this, it'd break her poor heart…" Ruby touched his shoulder, "Listen Ian…before I got here I tortured half-a-dozen young raider girls to death, drank em completely dry of blood and did I have any regrets? Fuck no I don't their blood was fucking delicious I'd bite em and fuck em again in a heartbeat if I could, and chances are there isn't a shortage of sexy bitches like those raiders in the Capital Wasteland I probably will do it again. You however Ian have a chance of not becoming a murderous psychopath like me." She said as she felt a warmth in her heart. _Maybe this is what being a mom feels like…I'm already that way with Maggie so…yeah this feels right. _She thought as she put on a motherly warm smile.

Ian looked into her eyes and became mesmerized by the genuine warmth within them. "How do you propose I do that Ruby…?" He whispered choking back more tears. Ruby hugged him tightly as she whispered, "Go back…Go back to the start of your nightmare…and face it…face it head on with all your will and strength." Ian pulled away staring at her for a second, "Wow…for a moment there you sounded just like Vance…alright I've decided that I'm going to leave the family and return home. Thank you very much Ruby." He soon began packing his things as Ruby walked out seeing Holly waiting for her. "That was really sweet of you on what you said to him…I'm glad to call you a sister of The Family." Ruby smiled and hugged her patting her back. "As am I Holly, I'm happy I have someplace I can come to other than Megaton in this wasteland…like a home away from home." Holly then lead her into hers and Vance's private quarters and began digging through her drawer. Ruby tilted her head as Holly pulled out a tattoo kit. "Your wanting to give me a tattoo?" Ruby asked seeing Holly nod excitedly.

"I'm a bit of an artist you see, and since there's no paint or canvas around to do paintings I turn to body art, it's a hobby of mine." She said carrying a blush of embarrassment on her pale face. Ruby smiled from ear-to-ear, "That's actually really cool Holly, I'd be honored if you gave me a tattoo you go ahead and set up while I go talk with Vance about Arefu." Holly nodded as Ruby walked out finding Vance waiting for her. "So I trust your discussion with Ian went well?" He asked crossing his arms in expectation. Ruby nodded, "It went very well in fact he wishes to return to Arefu to face his fear." Vance's eyes widened slightly, "Impressive Elizabeth you show a skill I don't see often in most people outside of The Family…and while it saddens me to lose him I find myself in deep respect of your decision to have him face his fears." And he looked her up and down for a second then nodding to himself as if to confirm an inner thought. "Now then onto the business of Arefu, I understand you wish us to stop hunting there." Ruby nodded as she pulled her 3 blood packs from her backpack. "If Arefu can donate these you protect them from threats in exchange."

Vance pondered her offer for a moment looking at the crimson juices inside the small packets. "And so in a gesture of good faith you wish to donate the ones your carrying as well?" Ruby nodded as she gave them to him. He then pulled a pouch of 30 caps from his pocket and paid them to her. "This is a very interesting deal you have formed, very well I accept." He said as he grabbed some paper from a nearby table taking out a pen from his coat and began creating a treaty as he then gave it to her. "Take that to Arefu to see if they accept, and thank you for coming here…Our time together has been very educational." Ruby smiled stuffing it away in her pack, "Okay but first I need to talk to Holly she was wanting to give me a tattoo to as a memento to remember you guys." Vance chuckled at his beloved wife's art lust as he watched Ruby run back to his personal quarters hearing the door shut.

She found Holly waiting for her with her electronic brush at the ready. Holly looked up at her and smiled, "Okay now I'm going to need you to undress and lay face down on the bed so I can begin." Ruby blushed grinning stupidly as she rapidly through off her pack and stripped down standing there naked as she put her pip boy on the dresser. She couldn't figure out which she was more excited for, the fact she was going to get a tattoo or the fact that a beautiful woman like Holly would be touching her skin again like she did when they first met after she first arrived in Meresti.

Holly seemed to smile gazing at Ruby's ghostly pale yet very attractively curved body as she crawled into the bed she shared with Vance laying face down. Ruby felt Holly start with her upper back feeling the buzz of the tattoo gun caressing her skin leaving a sting on her skin as it took everything for her not to purr and shiver in pleasure. It had felt like the process had gone on for hours until finally after the gun had drifted down her back she felt it go onto the right cheek of her buttocks causing Ruby to bury her face into the pillow squealing loudly. Finally Holly signaled her to sit up as she got down low between Ruby's legs amidst the rising heat Ruby was feeling in her body _Holy crap Holy crap what's she gonna do down there?! _She thought internally panicking at Holly's closeness to her crotch and finally felt the cold metal of the tattoo gun just press above its location as she arched back letting out a heavy sigh of ecstasy.

Finally when Holly finished she turned off the tattoo gun and smiled gazing down at Ruby as despite all the resistances she was giving herself she couldn't help but cup the cheek of the raven-haired girl before her as she moved her hair back over her back and pressed her lips against hers in a soft yet passionate kiss. She heard Ruby purr letting herself get into the kiss feeling the girl's tongue tease hers before she pulled away. "Stay here I'll go grab a mirror." Holly said walking out leaving Ruby trembling giddy from the stinging sensation she was feeling from her freshly drawn tattoos and the taste of Holly's tongue. "Mmmm….damn if only she wasn't married…" She mumbled licking her own lips savoring the citrus taste of Holly's lips upon her own.

Holly later returned holding a large full body mirror in her arms. "Alright stand up and I'll hold the mirror in front of you." She said as she positioned the mirror in front of her. Ruby stood and stared at herself in the mirror admiring the handiwork that Holly had drawn on her. She saw what looked to be a large spider in its web just positioned above her crotch causing Ruby to giggle at Holly's potential reasons for it. She then turned so her back faced the mirror and turned her head towards the mirror as she saw the drawing of a large rose as its thorny stem stretched down the curve of her back and ended upon her right cheek of her buttocks as she took note of the dark shadowy Japanese characters next to the stem. "Hmm…Ruby Rose huh…?" She turned to look at Holly as the woman giggled at Ruby's own nickname for herself.

After she dressed still shivering at the stinging sensation from the tattoos she said her goodbyes to The Family and set out to return to Arefu where Dogmeat would be waiting and the citizens to welcome her back as a hero.

Vance waited until Ruby left and then went to his wife finding her cleaning up her tattoo kit. "Holly my love…that girl…that girl has some huge potential…" Holly smiled nodding "That she does my dear husband…" And then saw that Vance looked troubled. "Is something bothering you Vance?" Vance nodded as he sat down on the bed taking her hand. "There's a war coming my beloved…I can feel it on the whistling winds in the metro…and if something happens to me…I want her to be the new leader of The Family." Holly choked back the tears that were forming. "A war?" She asked amidst her sadness. Vance nodded slowly ashamed that he was making his wife worry so, "Yes my dear…and if that time comes…I want you to be at her side…passing on all the teachings that I taught you…I want you to be her mentor…lead The Family alongside her." Holly could do nothing but nod and listen despite her reservations.


	22. Chapter 22: The Vault of Lies part 1

It was late into the evening as Ruby was on her way home back to Megaton with her canine companion Dogmeat after settling business in Arefu. "We can really make a difference out here Dogmeat and get all the blood spilling and caps we need for our trouble!" She told the dog as she giggled happily seeing Kaelyn's Bed and Breakfast again. The dog only barked in acknowledgement wagging his tail happily at his master's happiness and deeply relieved that she was able to safely traverse the dark tunnels in Meresti alone. Ruby continued staring at the ruined building as the scent of death from her previous visit still permeated from its ruined interior. "Hehehehe awww they stink now, oh well! I was done with them anyway." She said smiling widely and noticed the narrow side trail going up from the road. "Helloooo….." She purred noticing the rusted fence and the dip into what looked like a cave entrance only instead of darkness there was a worn wooden door.

"Looks like we found another vault Dogmeat! Sneaky thing escaped our notice when we first came through here." She said as a wide childish smile spread across her lips. _Time to loot the shit outta this vault…! I mean no one's left alive in there right? And if there are survivors…._ She thought as she touched Scarlet's handle for luck before stepping into the dark depths. Soon the familiar cog-shaped giant door stood in front of her as if it were an impenetrable shield. Ruby smiled as she walked up to the outer control console. "You cant stop me from looting everything you have you stupid vault." She said and pulled the switch setting off the automatic alarm that triggered the loud screeching grinding of the door opening.

Her and Dogmeat stepped inside examining their surroundings noticing the vault's age showing that it had not been cleaned in a long time. Ruby nodded to herself mentally confirming hers and Amata's suspicions that Vault 101 was truly the last "active" vault in the Wasteland, albeit Ruby still thought it was the shittiest place to live even if it was cleaner than the rusted and decaying metal she was standing on now. _The decay was there…except its on the fucking Overseer and not the vault…_ She thought bitterly as she walked around quickly beginning to take stock of the various tools that the former vault residents left behind. "Hmm some conductors, sensor modules, fusion batteries, and a little bit of scrap metal…okay that's a good start so far." She mumbled and walked down the hall leading to intersecting stairways each going into different hallways.

She decided to take the left stairway first which lead into a small hallway near a little lab area. Suddenly she began to feel very dizzy, she stumbled using the viewport for support looking around blinking as she realized that her vision had changed. "What the fuck…?" She mumbled and suddenly giggled which startled her. "Why is everything so purple…?" She continued mumbling down the hallway until she saw a familiar figure going into the lab, a tall man in a vault doctor's uniform his hair graying from age that showed on his beard. "D-Dad…!" She cried and ran into the lab after him mumbling about all the questions she'd ask him only to find four instances of James Hanson in the same room one at different tables each one meticulously taking notes and samples. "Dad…?! C'mon its me your daughter Ruby!" She cried walking to each one only for them to vanish from her sight never having acknowledged her. She fell to her knees feeling the tears coming out and dripping to the floor. _What in the hell!? Did Dad really come here?! Or was I hallucinating it?! Dad…I miss you so much! Why did you leave me!?_ She thought as she sat there bawling. Suddenly she felt another presence in the room, She slowly looked up at the table in front of her first spying the legs of a little girl, and then the familiar tattered black dress until she saw her face. The face of the very same little girl who she met in Minefield.

She smiled down at the weeping Ruby before her as she picked up a scalpel and began to play with it in her hands twirling it as if she were holding a knife. _Madness has consumed this place…_ She whispered making Ruby perk up even more and staring at the mysterious little girl before her. _Everyone here who isn't dead is insane…victims of the violet mist….but there is one…hidden deep inside…he controls the mist…he shows us these lies…_ Ruby's eyes went wide, she didn't care whether or not the child before her was a ghost or not she felt that the child was telling her the truth. The little girl suddenly began to giggle cracking the same psychotic grin she felt forming on her own face.

_You know what we must do…._She whispered between giggles before the both of them went off into a loud cackle. "WE KILL HIM! WE KILL THEM ALL!"

**I am so sorry for this short one I've been meaning to work on this for days but shit just keeps coming up not to mention now I have my latest semester of college coming up and I'm still recovering from being sick and vomiting my guts out at 4 a.m. Oh I am also planning of splitting this story off into two volumes what do you guys think? Feel free to pm me for any questions you need otherwise share your thoughts in your review. Thanks a bunch guys ^^**


	23. Chapter 23:The Vault of Lies part 2

Dogmeat watched his master laugh loudly with the child that had somehow suddenly made her appearance in front of her yet again. Throughout the course of his traveling with Ruby he had always smelled the little girl always nearby, keeping her distance but close enough for him to sense her. He had kept quiet about it though because he was puzzled at the girl's striking resemblance to Ruby. Ruby seemed to have quickly gotten used to her as well, as if the little child had always been at her side her whole life. Suddenly he heard footsteps as he turned and saw a young man in a blue and yellow jumpsuit approaching their location brandishing a lead pipe in his hand. Dogmeat quickly hid under one of the tables and raised his hackles as his lips curled back into a snarl ready to pounce the man.

The crazed man heard the snarl and began to chuckle seeing Ruby in the window. "Has a little Alice fallen down our hole?" He said stepping into the room and seeing the little girl that was laughing with Ruby making him stop short. Ruby stood up giggling as she held the little girl's hand turning and smiling innocently at the man grasping Scarlet in her other hand. "Yeah that's it, I'm Alice and I'm stuck in your Wonderland! And this is my little magic white rabbit!" She said as she cracked up into another laugh in unison with the child. Suddenly all the poor man felt was fear, unbridled terror causing every bone in his body to scream at him to flee, flee away from the two girls before him. Before he was able to move however he suddenly realized the little girl was in directly in front of him grinning wildly brandishing the sharp rusty scalpel she had been playing with earlier as she swung plunging it into his stomach. The man screamed in agony as the little girl roared with the eyes of a demon amidst her mad laughter, "I'm going to kill you now okay?! So please give me SOME entertainment as I leave my writing on the wall with YOUR entrails!" As she rapidly slashed open his chest with inhuman strength and reached in with her tiny bare hands starting to dig out bone, tissue, and organs scattering them all over the wall. Ruby could only laugh more as she stood there and watched the slaughter.

When she was finished she stood up and smiled at Ruby as she hungrily licked at her own lips tasting the blood that had gushed there. "Yummy!" Was all she said as she giggled before vanishing the bloody scalpel clattering to the floor beside the mutilated corpse. Ruby then hopped over the body as Dogmeat followed after her, the two beginning to traverse the darkness of Vault 106. Ruby now had two priorities in this vault as she saw it, take whatever wasn't nailed to the fucking floor, and brutally slaughter the survivors of the vault as well as finding the doctor that was controlling the emissions of the gas that were causing the hallucinations. The first group she came across were as easy as the first, none of them armed with any firearms which as delighted as she was to kill them she was also disappointed at the lack of a good fight. "I wanna see them fight hard, thinking they can win just before I brutally break them!" She yelled whimpering to herself.

On the bright side of her looting she was able to scrounge up quite a bit of Pre-War books some of them being combo manga volumes of some of her favorite anime, she even went and found a dark Goth version of the Alice in Wonderland book which made her giggle. _Ooooh Tim Burton you magnificent bastard, I still can't believe you went and made a movie of that. _She thought remembering some of the old movies her and Amata would watch on nights when she was tired of anime. However as Ruby looted every room she could find clean of anything useful something nagged at her. Where was all the women? Where were the children? Despite the madness she was feeling in the Vault parts of her mind were telling her that something bad had happened here besides the gas that made everyone go psychotic. Or was it the little girl telling her that? She really couldn't tell anymore.

As she and Dogmeat wandered down into the living quarters violently mowing down whoever came close with Scarlet she began to thoroughly search each room turning up nothing but some chems and radiation suits. As much as Ruby was against drugs she could see the uses for certain chems like Buffout and Med-X. _Not that I should really care right now when I've been getting so doped up on that stupid gas._ However when she entered the final room suddenly she could feel the gas in the room again as her vision turned purple and Dogmeat vanished from her sight. "Oooohh yeah I am so fucking high" She mumbled giggling stumbling along seeing the bed. She felt a sudden desire to sleep, to let the sexy hands of dream-Amata take her into her arms. And as if answering her prayers she appeared next to the bed smiling softly. "Ruby…my sweet jewel girlfriend." Ruby blushed and smiled happily giggling running over to Amata and hugging her tightly. "You finally have what you have always wanted Ruby, me Amata Almodovar as your girlfriend and soon…to be your wife." She said as she seductively began to unzip her vault suit luring Ruby in. Ruby reached out giggling when she remembered earlier how the hallucinations of her dad played out as if she had found a clue of where he had been. She felt her heart being tugged as her eyes trembled feeling the tears beginning to come. "Amata…we will always be together right?" Amata smiled even more nodding. "Yes of course! I'll always love you Ruby!" and gasped as she felt the cold barrel of Scarlet being pressed against the bottom of her mouth. "I love you too…." was all Ruby could whisper just before she pulled the trigger killing the fake Amata and ending this hallucination of hers. Ruby then collapsed onto the abandoned bed crying again wishing that Amata left the vault with her.

She awoke after 3 hours feeling Dogmeat whimpering as he tugged on her pant-leg. She poked her head up at him as her disheveled long hair gave her a dark silly appearance. "Don't worry boy I'm alright…lets go kill a Vault Doc yeah?" He barked happily in relief as the two trotted out of the living quarters beginning to venture deeper into the vault. The residents had started becoming a bit more organized now ambushing her whenever they could around every corner and sometimes even outflanking her and Dogmeat wildly swinging their weapons trying to bash or cut them to ribbons. However Ruby and Dogmeat were still successful in dispatching each of them leaving a bloody trail of corpses in the hallways. Ruby grasped her head tightly as she heard voices everywhere echo as in one instance she felt a hand come out of the wall attempting to grab her during one of her encounters with the insane residents. "Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! I'll kill whoever did this to you now shut up all of you!" She said to herself in her raving insanity.

Finally as she stepped into chambers that looked similar to where the Water Purifier Stanley would always be fixing back in Vault 101 be located. The little girl appeared again pointing in front of her smiling as the prey she had been hunting for this whole time finally appeared looking to be a middle aged asian man _There he is…_she whispered smiling as she vanished again. "You! You have been a wonderful specimen! You are what has made my Viola gas effective! Soon I, Kizami Takano will have been the one that replaced the FEV virus with the perfect gas to make all of the Red Army go mad and kill themselves!" and began to cackle evilly.

Suddenly he stopped as he wrapped his arms around himself in a tight hug. He gasped as he turned and saw the little girl again smiling at him. "You talk too much mister…" He felt his lab coat tighten and compress around him restraining his arms and then his legs causing him to fall over. He looked down and gasped in horror seeing that his lab coat had somehow become a straight jacket that was now tightly latched around him tightly constricting him like a serpent. He heard the child disappear as the older teenage girl walked over to him laughing and grabbing one of the ends pulling him up. "That's a good look for you Kizami…too bad there's no white room to match!" And punched him across the face continuing her rant. "Have I been a good Deadman Doctor? Can I have candy now?!" She said giggling as she bashed his head into the console causing him to yell and swear loudly in pain. Finally she grabbed his head pulling hard at his hair glaring into his eyes. "You put poison in my veins doctor…now all I want to do is make you bleed like me!" She said grinning from ear-to-ear not even noticing the pain as she slashed her palm with her own knife splashing it onto his face.

"See? See? I bleed Doctor! I don't even cut myself regularly!" She growled as she began to drag her victim to a nearby door leading out into a cave tunnel opening and finding skeletons of the women and children of the vault. She noticed the bullet holes in their bones and gritted her teeth as Kizami could swear he saw the irises in her eyes dilate backwards into a demonic glare. "SO THIS IS WHAT YOU DID WITH THEM?! YOU SICK FUCKING MONSTER!" She screamed bashing his head into the doorway as he felt teeth breaking off and snapping on his jaws as if they were the next to go. He thought that was the end until she stopped and continued to drag him out until they reached the dirt rocky ground cavern floor. "You want to be heard? Okay I'll get you what you deserve…" was all he could hear her mumbling as she shoved him down and straddled him grinning wildly as she began grabbing dirt and rocks in her hands and began to shove them into his mouth and down his throat.

He tried to thrash and struggle as he felt a taste of her blood, the dirt and the rocks being shoved into his mouth. He felt his throat begin to tighten cutting off his oxygen as his neck and mouth were now full of blood-soaked dirt and rocks. Just as he thought that was how his death was to come he saw her take out her custom 10mm pistol and slide the barrel into his mouth pressing up against the gravel that pressed up against his tonsils trying to trigger his gag reflex. The last feeling he ever had was the sound of her pulling the trigger and the resulting reaction causing his cheeks to pop like little balloons, his jaws break up and the back of his neck popping open as blood spurted out from the bullet onto the cavern floor. Ruby said nothing as she took the barrel of Scarlet out, cleaned it of saliva and blood, took the ammunition and medical supplies near the skeletons and left with Dogmeat back out into the Wasteland. "This is why I hate these vaults…" She mumbled as she continued her trek back to Megaton again with her canine companion at her side and her ghostly compatriot out of sight but not far behind.

**Hey guys this has bugging me for a while and I was wondering, what kind of name do you guys think I should give "little Ruby"? I hope you enjoyed this story so far I'm really glad with the way its going. I should have the next chapter up as soon as I can, school has started for me recently and so my schedule will be a tad tight but I'd happily persevere for you guys! Again thanks a bunch!**


	24. Chapter 24:Book trip and a Sisterly Bond

Upon returning to Megaton Ruby started to notice that changes were taking place, people were starting to look at her differently, not to mention hearing that evidently DC's number one radio personality Three Dog, the man that held info on the possible whereabouts of her dad seemed to have somehow found out about her latest excursion to Arefu where she had saved the town. She also heard him broadcast about when she disarmed the nuke within the center of town. _How the hell does this guy know about me?_ She thought as she was looking around one day to make sure that someone, possibly someone working with Three Dog wasn't watching or stalking her in the event they report another big news-worthy story to him to broadcast. "I've got no problems being a hero it always feels awesome killing a few bad guys and getting paid for my trouble but am I seriously building a rep that quickly…?" She mumbled. Lucy West had been overjoyed of her brother's safety and to Ruby's surprise showered her with about as much thanks as the people of Arefu did. Evan King got her a fresh bottle of wine, Ken Ewers fixed up her equipment not to mention he wasn't acting like an asshole to her, and Karen Schenzy in addition to taking care of Dogmeat while she was away she also provided Ruby with three new locations on her Pip-Boy from which she marked down to investigate on a later date. As much as Ruby drooled over Karen's attractive figure she had wanted to leave for Megaton before it got dark.

However Lucy had gone so far as to nearly ask Ruby out on a date as thanks for helping her. Ruby had gracefully declined of course, as much of a beautiful blonde Ruby believed Lucy to be she also believed that Lucy's resemblance to Amata would result in the death of what was left of the crimson-eyed girl's sanity. _I have enough things to worry about in this Wasteland without being reminded of her…_ Ruby thought as she sat on her newly acquired couch from purchasing a theme for her new home. Dogmeat lay at her feet fast asleep after a thorough exploration of their home satisfied that it was a suitable dwelling and exhausted from their recent travels.

A few days had passed since Ruby's return to Megaton and life seemed to pass on like normal. Ruby had gotten back into helping Moira Brown write her Wasteland Survival Guide book so far she had helped her finish chapter 2. Which was well…interesting to say the least, she had been able to test the chemical repellent on most of the Mole Rats in the Tepid Sewers and the Potomac tribe of Raiders she met there were fooled by a disguise she had put on after she decided to ditch what was left of her vault suit allowing her to go on a feeding frenzy on the entire tribe and leaving her well warm and satisfied with blood in her body. Ruby shivered as she remembered the near-suicide mission Moira sent her on inside the Anchorage War Memorial as the Mirelurks inside once they found her after she placed the observer near one of their pods ran her out of the facility nearly ripping her apart as they made short work of the raider armor she had been wearing. Every time she closed her eyes she still saw herself in that pitch dark corner on the top floor staring directly at a Mirelurk that was standing 6 inches away from her in the doorway to the medical room she had attempted to enter and that moment unnerved and frightened her to no end. Thankfully her resulting near-fatal injuries delighted Moira enough for her to take notes and finish up chapter 2 of the book.

The only other stroke of good luck Ruby was able to achieve was the clothing shop she found on her way back to Megaton contained a perfectly good black bra that fit her size and to go with her panties as a replacement for the one she lost when she had been captured by the Dust Tribe in the Super Duper Mart. _At least my pillows wont be flopping around everywhere._ She thought as she took a sip of Nuka Cola staring up at the ceiling wondering at what she should do next. Helping Moira with chapter 3 of the book seemed incredibly easy, the annoyingly intelligent redhead wanted her to travel to the Robco factory to the southwest which if she remembered correctly shouldn't be too far from where Mr. Burke told her Tenpenny Tower was located. _Me and technology are like close fuck buddies I'd be able to get that job done in no time _Ruby thought as she sat up and went over her list of what needed to be done for the book.

She also had to travel all the way to some place called Rivet City to find out about its history. _By that name alone I'd have to guess it's a big settlement on like an old Pre-War U.S. Navy ship or something._ She thought tapping her cheek with a pencil as she took some notes and looked at the map on her Pip-boy scrolling down to where Moira had marked down the location of Rivet City. "If the location is correct the fastest way of me getting there is going right along the Potomac River…and if Three Dog's static blurred broadcasts indicate anything anywhere near or in downtown DC is bound to be crawling with raiders or worse yet more than likely those big buff Super Mutant fucks…" She mumbled gritting her teeth in anger as she remembered the one Super Mutant Brute that had nearly killed her when the entire left side of her body had been riddled with 5mm bullets from its minigun.

Finally Moira also needed her to go to the Arlington Library which according to Ruby's memory of old Pre-War DC maps was located near the US military's most heavily fortified installation, the Pentagon. Though now thanks to recent broadcasts Ruby had heard from both President Eden and Three Dog the Pentagon was now known as the Citadel, said to be the main headquarters for the Brotherhood of Steel. Ruby had always been excited to meet the Brotherhood of Steel ever since Ruby left the vault and first began hearing about them. _Anyone that causes an old fuck like President Eden to bitch about them can't be all bad right?_ She thought to herself and shook her head quickly from the resulting voices that followed. Ruby was still recovering from the effects of the gas she had been exposed to in Vault 106, it had been getting better since she left the dark dead vault, she had begun seeing less and less hallucinations, heard the voices less frequently, and thankfully aside from her childish ghostly twin had stopped having paranoid feelings of being watched especially when she went to bathe in her upstairs bathroom.

She thought for a moment and then checked the Arlington Library off the list looking down at Dogmeat. "Well buddy looks like we are going to go book digging at our local library." She said rubbing his head as he quickly woke up wagging his tail sitting up. Ruby went upstairs as she quickly threw off what had been left of the raider armor she had been relying on for a while and took out the _Tough Girl _outfit that her and Maggie had discovered when Ruby had taken her to clear out the raiders at the Springvale Elementary. "Hmm well I bet it'd make Maggie happy if I wore it besides its best I don't get picky now_." _She said as she slid on the red shirt beginning to put on the outfit buttoning the black vest with armor padding underneath the fabric and sliding on the dark jeans as she admired how cool they looked. _Okay me and Maggie made a good find on this one because good fucking god do I f eel sexy in this!_ She thought excitedly as she put on the boots and buckling on the gunbelt patting the handle of the 44. Magnum revolver that came with the outfit in the holster. Ruby couldn't help but smile as she packed her equipment and slung her M4 across her shoulder walking out with Dogmeat walking towards the entrance of the town noticing Maggie out playing with Harden Simms, the son of the town's sheriff Lucas Simms. The little girl noticed her immediately stopping her game with Harden and ran over to Ruby. "You're going out again Ruby? Is it to help crazy Mo Brown with her book again?" She said with a lonely whimper in her voice. Ruby smiled full of warmth as she crouched down to her level patting her head. "Yeah it is but don't worry about me Maggie, that book Moira's writing is going to help everybody in the end and your big sister is going to be there to make sure it happens..!" Ruby said flexing one of her biceps with a childish grin on her face. Maggie huffed trying to fight back tears putting up a strong front to Ruby wanting to impress her as she felt heartbreak in her chest. "Your always so busy Ruby we never get a chance to play together…I mean sure I got Harden to play with and he's a great friend and all but.. I always get so lonely when your not in Megaton Ruby, like every time you leave town its like your not gonna be coming back."

Ruby had to choke back tears by how touched she was by Maggie's words. _I really am like an older sister to this girl…if there's anything that just makes my day when I come back to Megaton its spending time with this little girl in front of me. I'm glad I met you Maggie Creel…_ Ruby thought solemnly as she took Maggie in her arms giving her a deep hug. "I promise you Maggie that I'm not going to let the Wasteland take me away from you okay? When I get back I'll be sure to play whatever game you and Harden want to play alright?" Maggie then closed her eyes as she felt the tears coming out from her eyelids. "Pinkie swears you wont leave me?" Ruby smiled as she let go of Maggie and held out her pinkie wrapping it in hers as a promise was made. "Shove a thousand needles down my throat if I end up lying." Ruby said smiling with a slightly humorous grin. Maggie gasped and then chuckled lightly shoving Ruby playfully "oh jeez lets hope it doesn't come to that!" Maggie said giggling happily as the two said their goodbyes Ruby exiting the town with Dogmeat and set out to begin her long trek along the Potomac River to Arlington Library.


	25. Chapter 25:A visit with Sparkles

Ruby continued to wipe away her own tears from saying goodbye to Maggie as her and Dogmeat traveled along the Potomac River. When they reached the Super Duper Mart parking lot Ruby stopped and stared at the building for a while, remembering the cocky girl she was back then when she first entered. "That feels like years ago now…" she whispered as she saw the sign she had placed near the mutilated pile of flesh from the raider corpses she stacked up that day were still in place although the stench of decay was fresh. She could also see that various animals had stopped by and devoured bits from the pile leaving lumps of decomposing flesh and coagulating blood. Ruby quickly shook her head from her memories and continued towards what looked to be a large office building.

From there they began to hear gunfire, both her and Dogmeat were on alert as she searched around for its source eventually seeing three Super Mutants in a brutal firefight near the ledge overlooking the water as they were firing at several raiders across the river. "Shit…" Ruby whispered as she checked her ammo and grenades, from her vantage point she could see that the Super Mutants were exactly like the armored brute she encountered near Arefu except only one of these horrific beasts was carrying a minigun while the other two carried assault rifles which almost seemed comically tiny in their hulking muscular hands. Ruby touched Dogmeat's head as she looked at him, "Okay here's the plan we are gonna let em fight it out while we sneak past them its their problem not ours." Dogmeat's eyes only pointed in the direction they were heading in acknowledgement.

Ruby smiled as she slowly stood up keeping low as she began to sneak past the Super Mutant's position using the minigun's noise as cover with Dogmeat at her heels as they quickly ran away hoping the Super Mutants wouldn't turn and see the young girl and dog that had snuck past them running away. They stopped seeing a shack along a shore dock with some decayed abandoned boats. Ruby stepped onto the dock walking towards the shack seeing an old woman sleeping in a chair with a hunting rifle in her lap. _Umm…I wonder if I should wake the lady up I mean she should probably know about the shoot out going on right now _Ruby thought as she crept towards the woman about to tap her shoulder.

Suddenly the old woman sprang up shoving the rifle in her face. "Freeze ya sonuva bitch!" and then broke out laughing as Ruby grasped her chest trying to calm herself down from the sudden shock. "Scared ya didn't I youngster?" She asked laughing as she sat back down. "I'm Anna Sparkle most folks around these parts call me Grandma Sparkle. What's your name you pretty little thing?" She asked with a toothy grin as she held out her hand in a handshake. Ruby was resisting every urge she had in her body not to shoot this woman in the head for scaring the living shit out of her by pointing her rifle at her face. She threw on her best crooked smile as she shook the woman's hand. "I'm Ruby I'm just a traveler passing through." She was about to turn and continue walking off when Grandma Sparkle called her back over.

"Hey don't worry about a thing Miss Ruby you look famished come and sit on down here fer a spell'." Ruby and Dogmeat immediately perked up when they heard her talk about food and she decided to sit down next to the woman. It was at this time that Grandma Sparkle noticed Ruby's tattoo partially exposed from the outfit she was wearing on her lower back. "Them markin's…you're the Ghost ain't cha?" Ruby's eyes went wide as dinner plates as she said that. "I'm sorry miss but…Ghost? Me?" She asked tilting her head, Grandma Sparkle nodded as she grabbed a flask of whiskey drinking some of the liquids inside. "Word along the Potomac spreads like wildfire kid, and I've been hearin a lotta talk among traders, caravaneers, shit anybody that walks through here really, that raider tribes have been getting wiped out like a bad rash across the wasteland. Sayin a ghost be comin in and killin em at night." She looked at Dogmeat as she continued. "Even sometimes torn to shreds like something sunk their teeth into em." She then got up and began grabbing food for Ruby and Dogmeat beginning to cook them a meal on an old grill.

Ruby thought for a moment as she looked up at Grandma Sparkle. "Grandma Sparkle? I don't mean any disrespect but what makes you think I'm this ghost?" She asked as she took a sip from a bottle of Purified Water. Grandma Sparkle only glared at her as she put her hand on her hip "Missy I've been along these radioactive waters enough to know these things! I maybe old but I'm not blind to see that you're the one that's makin' all the raiders shit themselves the minute they hear about ya! And I'm not dumb to know that your hound dog there has helped you do it!" Ruby winced expecting that to be the sort of retort she'd get from Grandma Sparkle. She had to admit, she liked the woman, to Ruby Grandma Sparkle was the one relative you'd want to go fishing with in the summer. However she also noticed that Grandma Sparkle's loneliness out here on the dock had kind of left her a little bit insane, not psychotic like Ruby was but just enough for her to be slightly sadistic from boredom but at the same time friendly and sociable.

"Oh damnit I knew I shoulda got some of that Mirelurk salt out, wait right here dearie while I go inside and get it." She said as she entered her shack. Ruby quickly took this opportunity to grab Grandma Sparkle's hunting rifle as she set down her own M4 and begun quickly checking the rifle doing maintenance. The weapon itself was in surprisingly good condition, Ruby suspected that someone may have helped her with it or she could have done it herself which had her amazed. _The old hag sure does know how to defend herself that's for sure. _She thought as she lifted back the bolt of the weapon looking into the chamber seeing only one fresh 32. caliber round. "She only had one bullet left…?" Ruby took out the bullet as she looked around remembering when the old woman had jumped out of her chair shoving the rifle in her face. _If I had been hostile towards the woman like I was going to slit her throat while she was asleep. She'd have been close enough to jump out of her chair and put a bullet right through my skull. _The reality of that thought made Ruby shiver in fear.

She heard movement in the shack come back towards the door as Ruby quickly put the bullet back into the chamber and sat the rifle down where Grandma Sparkle had left it. The woman had come back out and began finishing their meals walking over to them with plates of Mirelurk Cakes and two Brahmin Steaks. Ruby and Dogmeat stared at their food drooling in anticipation as Ruby giggled happily while Dogmeat panted heavily. Ruby quickly thanked Grandma Sparkle as she sat down Dogmeat's plate and the two began devouring the food rapidly Ruby eating with a fork and her combat knife while Dogmeat happily wolfed down his meal. "My! My! Ain't you two full now!" Grandma Sparkle said with delight at her two guests, her and Ruby talked a while longer long into the afternoon. Ruby had liked the woman even more given that she was learning a lot more about the area she was in including the squad of Talon mercenaries Grandma Sparkle mentioned passing through the area.

When Ruby finally saw the sun going down as day turned into night she realized. _Shit! I spent too much time here! Now I have to find somewhere to camp out quick! _She thought as she stood up. "I'm terribly sorry Grandma Sparkle thank you very much for the meal but I have to get going." Grandma Sparkle chuckled as she waved goodbye to her. "It was nice talkin' to ya Ruby! Go haunt some mo' raiders for me ya hear?" and walked inside most likely to turn in herself and go to bed. This gave Ruby a quick chance to spring into action, she went over to the refrigerator where Grandma Sparkle was keeping the meat she had stored and picked the lock on the handle opening it up.

She resisted the urge to steal all the packs of Brahmin, MireLurk meat and some strange big meat that the woman had evidently labeled _Yao Guai meat_, Ruby wasn't sure what a Yao Guai was and she figured that some day she'd probably find out but for now she reached into her pack digging through her ammo and pulled out some packs of 32. Caliber rounds and stuffed them in among the meat as she grabbed some paper from an empty journal she grabbed from Vault 106 stuffing it inside writing a note for her. Ruby then shut the refrigerator door and continued on her way with Dogmeat. It didn't take her long to see the large collapsed bridge up ahead with cars strewn about along the collapsed piece of the road making a ramp up onto the rest of the bridge. As she got close she could hear footsteps coming from beneath the other disconnected half of the bridge. _Damnit more raiders…!_ She thought as her and Dogmeat immediately got down low sneaking around the side of the camp along the concrete supports of the bridge as she peeked around the corner seeing a male lone raider taking out a cigarette and lighting it with his lighter as he seemed to stare out across a small red bridge towards a large structure.

Ruby turned to see the direction he was looking and realized why there were raiders camped here. _HOLY SHIT! that's the Citadel! _Ruby thought as she fought to contain her own excitement at the chance at finally meeting the Brotherhood of Steel at last silently praying they were a lot nicer than the asshole Brotherhood Outcasts she had encountered during her travels. Ruby purred as she took out her combat knife and slowly licked the blade tasting bits of Mirelurk meat and Brahmin meat on it as soon all modicum of stealth she was aiming for vanished as she unsung her M4 in her other hand running up behind the guard giggling as she slit his throat before he could react to her presence as he turned around towards her. This sparked up the whole camp as the other raiders sprung up from their poker game and their sleep grabbing weapons only to be cut down quickly by Ruby's M4 assault rifle carbine shooting from the hip. As one last sole surviving female raider tried to vault over the other side of the camp to escape that was when Dogmeat dove in snarling biting into the woman's shin and dragging her back down amidst her kicking and swearing. She was quickly silenced as Ruby grabbed hold of her and bit into her neck feeding off her chem tainted blood causing the woman's swearing to turn to screams of agony and then soft moans until finally the woman lost consciousness dying in Ruby's arms like a tragic bride. Ruby smiled grinning from ear-to-ear as she looked out at the large fortress that was the Citadel. "Starting tomorrow Brotherhood of Steel… oh yes starting tomorrow…we are going to be the best of friends!" She said giggling licking her own lips free of blood as she walked towards one of the camp beds and crawled onto it curling up mewing once before she went to sleep.


	26. Chapter 26:Steel Friend

"Sorry but no civilians allowed into the Citadel, please move along miss." The gruff Paladin Bael routinely told Ruby despite her teary eyed protests. "But I wanna see the insiiiiiide! I wanna join you guys!" She said whimpering hopping childishly. Bael began getting slightly irritated, "We are not taking any new recruits at this current time! Now please move along!" Ruby huffed as she crossed her arms, "Fine! But I'm going to help you guys out whether you like it or not and you are going to fucking LOVE me for it!" She huffed again and stomped away with Dogmeat towards the Arlington Library as Paladin Bael watched her and groaned thinking _Why do I get the feeling that I'm going to be taking orders from that girl someday? If so then the Capital Wasteland really is fucked._

After some momentary skinny dipping into the river to get at a stash of stimpaks on a sunken boat. Ruby continued on her way towards the Arlington Library skirting around the perimeter of the Citadel as she had never felt so giddy in all her life staring at some of the most advanced weapons in warfare. She purred as she stared at all the laser turrets she passed, the various Brotherhood of Steel knights and Paladins clad in Power Armor, every sight was almost too much for her inner weapon and armor otaku to take. Finally as she reached the intersection that turned towards the Library she began to hear gunfire.

She quickly crouched down low moving into the cover with the best sightlines as she peeked up seeing three Super Mutants in a shootout with one of the wall guardsmen of the Citadel. Ruby thought for a moment as she considered her options, the guard up top had the high ground and seemed to be holding his own quite well, however she decided it was better to relieve her frustrations from earlier out on them. She quickly took out her M4 clicking off the safety and began sprinting towards them. The first Mutant was easily taken down by the guard, so Ruby turned towards the other two and began to let loose on the trigger as 5.56 caliber NATO rounds pounded into their sides and chests causing them to go down quickly as they had turned to counter Ruby's flanking attack. However, Ruby had forgotten to take into account the Mutants bringing any extra reinforcements as she heard what sounded like a gag and then the next thing she knew she felt a hot lashing against her side causing her to fall over.

She quickly rolled on her back and grabbed Scarlet as she turned and saw what ambushed her. It looked like a large mound of flesh, compiled with what seemed to be multiple human limbs assorted with what she guessed to be several human tongues fused together to make a long slimy whip. "What the fuck are you?!" She yelled firing at it as it whipped her again as its tongues slipped into her cleavage. Ruby gasped as she began shooting the monster rapidly at point blank range as the armor piercing 10mm pistol rounds blew off chunks of flesh. "Nobody and I MEAN NOBODY TOUCHES MY CHEST!" She screeched and grabbed the tongues pulling them out and kicking it off. "Except Amata, any sexy woman I feel would be worth fucking just for the comfort, or if I just feel like groping myself." She mumbled quietly blushing and turned towards little Ruby as she stood there on the ruined pavement with a sideways glance at her. "Hey Hey don't judge me! You'd totally be doing it too if you were my size and had boobs like this!"

The little girl simply shook her head and vanished in the way she had came as Ruby turned to see one of the Brotherhood knights running up to her armed with a Z-98 laser rifle that immediately caught her attention as if it were a woman's chest. "Holy shit! are you alright?!" He asked through his helmet as he examined the bodies. Ruby shivered as she knew she was going to have to bathe heavily when she got home to wash away the slimy saliva on her chest let alone the memory of it ever occurring. "Yeah I'm okay thanks for asking." She said and then kicked the six footed-handed thing that attacked her. "What the fuck is this thing if you don't mind me asking?" The knight turned and looked at it as he kicked at it as well only smashing a piece of its flesh in the process. "We call these things Centaurs, they are like Super Mutant attack dogs, nasty things I can tell you that." Ruby nodded in agreement as she noticed Dogmeat running ahead hiding behind crashed cars and abandoned concrete road blocks.

_ Scouting ahead and checking for trouble huh? God I love you Dogmeat. _Ruby thought happily as she said goodbye to the man and ran to catch up with Dogmeat. She turned the corner finding Dogmeat sitting directly in front of an old pod-like bomb shelter. "Huh something good in this old metal coffin?" She said as she walked towards it readying herself for anything nasty to fall out. Sure enough after some rewiring of the shelter's door she found a skeleton inside completely decomposed and bleached white down to the bone. "Well shit…its your fault for going into this pointless piece of crap.." She whispered and looked down at the feet of the body seeing a couple of small boxes of 10mm ammo, a pistol and a copy of Guns and Bullets. Ruby smiled as she quickly swiped the items stuffing them in her pack. "I hope you won't mind if I borrowed this sorry if I disturbed you." She said to the skeleton and closed the door to the shelter smiling as she followed Dogmeat to the front door.

Upon touching the doorknob however her Pip-boy began buzzing with a new radio signal it had intercepted. "OH COME THE FUCK ON!" Ruby yelled frustrated that she couldn't go a whole week without another crisis. She leaned against the wall and began isolating the signal as a communications message had begun to broadcast. _"This is a priority message! Backup is needed at our location! Any Brotherhood Outcasts listening on this frequency please report at once!" _Ruby instantly was perked up at the mention of the outcasts recalling that she had seen soldiers in black and red power armor patrolling at the Scrapyard where her and Dogmeat first met. _Those must have been Brotherhood Outcasts, I wonder why they were exiled from the Brotherhood of Steel? _Ruby thought as she checked for anymore radio communications signals that could possibly be responding to the distress call. "_This is Defender Morrill if any Outcasts are listening on this frequency please report to grid 004 Bailey's Crossroads!" _Ruby blinked as she marked the location on her map and made her response to the message. "This is Defender Hanson I am en route to your location now, hold as long as you can." And so with their new objective in hand, Ruby and Dogmeat took off running to Bailey's Crossroads to save the Outcast soldiers.


	27. Chapter 27: Into the Steel Ice

** Hey guys we've hit chapter 27! Awesome right? Anyway I know some of you guys are probably wondering why some bits of my story are less than fallout-esque so if you have any questions about them feel free to PM me or post a review oh and by the way my town is having a flood so if I'm not swimming the next chapter will be ready for you guys.**

"How do I keep getting myself into these messes?!" Ruby yelled as she hid in the trailer of a semi truck from the hailstorm of bullets coming from the raiders of the Arlington Vultures tribe. It had only been 15 minutes since she had responded to Defender Morrill's call for reinforcements and just as Ruby and Dogmeat had nearly made their way to the top of the hill going under a bridge walkway when the raiders appeared along the sides of the bridge firing down at her. Dogmeat had taken a bullet to one of his legs and Ruby had carried him into the trailer as she ducked down behind cover. She was fighting to keep herself calm as all instances were urging her to either snap and go on a rampage or curl up in terror. She reloaded her M4 as bullets from outside pounded against the trailer and the cars clustered up outside. What she heard next made her make a split decision as she heard a missile whistling over the trailer and exploding down at the end of the line where her and Dogmeat had entered.

_ Shit they got an M-116 Missile Launcher too?!_ She thought as she jumped out of the trailer turning and running directly at the raiders leaving Dogmeat to recover from his wound after she injected a Stimpak into him inside the trailer. She was growing even more scared for Dogmeat as she heard bullets whiz by her ears hopping from cover to cover as she sprinted directly at the tribe. "Its just one girl you idiots! Kill her now!" She heard from what she assumed to be the leader barking orders as she dove and rolled seeing a fragmentation grenade bounce off the hood of the car she was using for cover and land near her as it exploded showering her in dirt. However Ruby didn't seem to care as she got up and ran through the entrance into the raider's camp shooting 4 raiders as they turned from their wooden and concrete fortress walls to fire upon her. The others quickly realized what was happening as they turned and dove for the nearest suitable cover firing at her.

Ruby did the same as she crouched down behind a counter reloading as she considered her next move. It wasn't long before she heard a loud set of explosions as she covered her eyes from the light. _Oh what now?!_ She thought as she realized that the one who fired the missile launcher from earlier had fired another one into the line of vehicles on the road as she saw him rising up from an elevated position right in front of her reloading another round into the explosive weapon. "YOU BASTARD!" She howled as she fired at him mercilessly gunning him down as a result. She then took out one of her remaining flash bang grenades that she had packed on her way to Arefu and tossed it out at the raiders closing her eyes as she heard a loud bang hurting her ears as she vaulted over the counter opening her eyes again seeing the raiders doubling over in pain covering their eyes and ears. "Yeah! Karma's a bitch isn't it?!" She yelled and quickly gunned them all down before they could recover from their temporary stunning.

When her hearing returned, all was quiet aside from the automated turret on the walkway. However Ruby didn't care, she sat down in one of the chairs the raiders had been using in their camp. She was frightened to go back and check the now burning junked up heap of cars and trucks on the road for Dogmeat believing all she'd find is the charred up corpse of her only companion in the Wasteland. She felt the tears coming from her eyes as she began crying "Oh Dogmeat…! I'm so sorry! I shouldn't have left you in there!" She heard a yell and then someone running up behind her. She quickly turned and saw the man from earlier that had been barking orders. She went to grab Scarlet when a shadow sprinted past her and lunged at the man. She looked and saw Dogmeat ripping into the raider's throat and tearing it out, his fur dusted in soot from the smoke after the explosions.

"Dogmeat! You crazy son of a bitch!" She laughed as her canine best friend looked up at her barking running over to her wagging his tail licking his chops to clean the blood off as she hugged him tightly still crying. "And they say I'm a psycho! I love you buddy!" She cried as she kissed his head happily giggling. The duo stayed at the camp overnight hoping to wait until the cover of darkness to avoid more raider ambushes as Ruby took stock of the supplies the raiders had gathered stuffing any ammunition and grenades that she could into her pack as well as having a quick meal of Salisbury steak. She then walked over to the small hill where the raider that was carrying the Missile Launcher had been hiding before she killed him. She hugged her M4 as she went into a prone position hidden from the road and closed her eyes going to sleep taking a nap.

It was around 4:30 in the morning when Ruby and Dogmeat finally arrived to the entrance of the Bailey's Crossroads Metro tunnel. Upon arriving into the area they met the Crimson Daggers, a small raider tribe located between the Red Racer Factory and the Nuka Cola Plant. They had just finished a shootout with a small squad from the tribe quickly dispatching them as they quickly cleaned out their camp of any supplies. The excitement was making Ruby too giddy to even go back to sleep as she entered the dark and eerie metro tunnel. She readied her assault rifle slithering through the darkness as if she really were a ghost herself. She wasn't sure what to expect as she looked around cautiously. Soon she began hearing the pitter patter of bare feet. _There's people down here? I guess that makes sense the metro is the only way of getting in and out of downtown DC. _She thought walking forward as she heard what sounded like erratic chattering and breathing as she noticed Dogmeat's fur begin to bristle as he began snarling hackles raised. "Shit…" and next she heard what sounded like a loud shriek and sounds of people running at her bare footed as she turned and saw three figures running at her clad in barely any rags breathing rapidly as they moved to lunge at her.

"Oh shit! Zulu Oscar Mike! Zulu Oscar Mike!" She yelled as she fired at them quickly cutting them down. She got down on one knee as she examined the bodies taking note of their decayed flesh. "Mother fucker…these are ghouls…only its like they are feral…well fuck what Moriarty says about Gob these ferals are the real zombies!" She counted her blessings noticing that the majority of the rest of the Bailey's Crossroads metro had caved in with rubble. She saw the exit her and Dogmeat were looking for up ahead as she searched around the area finding a stash of purified water and a sawed-off shotgun that she'd be able to make some caps off of selling. She checked the time seeing that the sun was probably rising outside as she walked back up the escalator stairs turning towards the exit with Dogmeat trailing behind her.

Their first visit into downtown DC was a bit…hectic as soon as Ruby stepped out of the metro she heard the loud sounds of gunfire, explosions, and the zapping from various energy weapons. Ruby and Dogmeat got low as they cautiously snuck up the steps seeing the Outcast soldiers that they had come to rescue. They had seen her as well as they began shifting positions and started to form around hers as she saw one of the soldiers with scar-like tally marks on his power armor came running towards her carrying a minigun. "I'm Defender Morrill and I have two questions to ask, why the hell are you here and how the fuck did you manipulate my broadcast? Outcast signals are always on a special frequency." He said through his helmet, Ruby couldn't help but beam as she smiled widely. "I figured you could use the help so I came to help you clear out the Super Mutants."

Defender Morrill chuckled as he checked out Ruby's weapons and attire, "You seriously want to help us local?" Then he noticed something strange as he saw the Pip-Boy on her wrist. "Ohhh you have one of those wrist-mounted computers, actually you may be able to help us out after all kid." Ruby growled in frustration quickly getting upset with the man, "My name isn't kid! Its Ruby, Ruby Hanson!" She yelled as Defender Morrill continued to chuckle. "Okay Okay listen Ruby, you and your dog there stick with me and my men until we get to the bunker alright? If you still feel like killing Super Mutants that is." Ruby pursed her lips into a pout crossing her arms as she looked away. "hmph! Fine! I'll help you clear them out but I can't promise I will not be enjoying it because I will be loving it!" She said as the group began to fight their way through Super Mutant positions to the bunker.

It was going into the late morning when they finally arrived at the bunker as Defender Morrill radioed the forces inside the bunker. Ruby leaned against the wall sighing in exhaustion happy that they were able to catch a break from the fighting. She looked up as he finished his message and walked towards her. "Alright I just finished talking with Protector McGraw downstairs Its all clear for you to head on down." Ruby glared at him as she stood up straight "Now wait just a fucking minute what is it you're wanting me to fucking help you guys with?" Morrill turned and looked at her his emotions unreadable through his power armored helmet. "We've been trying to get into an armory this facility contains holding a vast amount of advanced technology and weaponry. To open it we need someone with a Pip Boy like the one you got there." Ruby looked down at her Pip Boy understanding now that this is the assistance that the Outcasts were really asking for. "Okay then you should have said something earlier." The surprise was now heard in Defender Morrill's voice as he asked "so your really going to help us? Just like that?" Ruby nodded as she patted Dogmeat's head, "Just like that, I'm really good with technology and so I figure getting inside an armory would be a really fun challenge for me." Morrill seemed to shake his head as he walked away and reform the defenses with his men.

Ruby turned to Dogmeat as she crouched down staring him directly in the eyes. "Now I want you to guard this elevator while I'm inside and make sure nothing big, burly, and nasty gets passed you okay Dogmeat?" Dogmeat whimpered at the thought of leaving his master alone again as he had seen her weeping in misery before the crazed man with the vulture tattoo attempted to attack her. "Hey its okay buddy I won't be gone long…I'm just going to do a little toy shopping that's all.." She giggled as she kissed his snout. Dogmeat then lay down on alert at the elevator watching her step inside the elevator and begin to descend underground into the VSS Facility.

She could hear a man barking out orders down below as the elevator descended but she couldn't make out what he was saying amidst the noise. When the elevator finally reached the bottom she saw the man that had been barking orders as she saw that he was yelling at a guard. "Now buck up and shut the fuck up soldier!" He yelled as he turned and saw her walking out as he stepped towards her. "I'm Defender Sibley you must be the one McGraw was wanting to see." He said in a gruff almost growling tone though Ruby detected a hint of a smirk on his face as Defender Sibley looked her up and down. "Follow me and shut the hell up, keep your hands and legs to yourself and don't fucking touch anything!" Ruby clenched her fists as she nodded following him resisting every urge not to try and snap his unprotected neck immediately.

_ Fuck the Outcasts are such assholes! _She thought as they entered a large room filled with terminals, tools, and scrap metal seeing another one of the Outcasts not wearing his power armored helmet with a military style buzz cut as his hair with a rough mustache turning towards them. "You must be the local that Morrill was talking about thanks for bringing her in Sibley." He said with a cool matter-of-fact tone. Sibley grumbled as he saluted and began to say something. "Sir I have some concern-" Protector McGraw glared at him as he said "Your concern has been dually noted Sibley and will be discussed at another time now your dismissed." Sibley seemed to growl under his breath as he said "Yes sir…" Ruby shivered at how tense the situation felt but she knew she had no right of telling Protector McGraw how to lead his men. He looked at her again as he said "Now I normally don't trust any local near technology the most I'd trust em to do is shine my power armor and even that's pushing it." He said as he saw Ruby glaring at him as well. "However with that Pip Boy you have there I can see now that Morrill made the right call sending you down here." Ruby looked around resisting her urge to drool at all of the Pre-War U.S. Military technology all around her. "So what is it you need me to do?"

He explained to her what needed to be done from the bunker's history, to the simulation she needed to complete and the requirement that her Pip Boy was needed to interface with the systems. Ruby grinned from ear-to-ear getting more and more excited as she looked at him. "So what your saying is that I have to go through a VR battle of something that happened 200 years ago to get at these guns? And you guys will split the findings with me?" He nodded as he continued "Sibley will take you to the room where our scribe will give you the suit you need to activate the simulation." Ruby squealed happily as she followed Defender Sibley to a room at the far end of the hall where she saw a fairly young woman who looked to be in her early 30's was working on one of the machines. Ruby couldn't help but start checking the pretty scribe out as she thought _Not bad looking for someone who's probably a bitchy Outcast member that robe does NOT leave much to the imagination however. "_Hey Olin I got a new friend for you! Lets hope you treat her better than the last one we brought in!" Defender Sibley said with a sadistically cheery chuckle. Specialist Olin turned and looked at him and Ruby clenching her fist in anger because of her hatred for Sibley and his asshole comments about what she did to the clone they abducted out of Vault 108. "Fine and for the last fucking time Sibley that wasn't my fault!" He laughed as he walked out shutting the door and leaving the two women alone. She looked at Ruby and shoved the suit Protector McGraw mentioned in her hands. "Here put this on and don't fucking say anything." Ruby sighed as she began changing into the Neural Interface suit.

"I was just hoping to be friendly that's all what the hell has you acting so bitchy?" She asked as she began to change clothes taking off her vest and shirt. Olin sighed as she had gone to work on the machines again, "Its just…all those stupid grunts out there always put so much damn pressure on me in here I mean I'm the only one who knows how these systems fucking work! Its exhausting…" Ruby looked at her as she began dressing into the suit groaning to herself at how much it felt like her vault suit, form fitting and skin tight to the point of fucking insanity. "I know what you mean I used to be the Pip Boy Programmer back in my vault…there were only two people who knew how to work with these damn things and I was one of them." Olin almost turned and looked at her as Ruby zipped up the middle of the suit. _That's actually really impressive for a local from one of those vaults…maybe this is an asset we cant afford to lose, I'll have to speak with Protector McGraw about it. _That was when she noticed Ruby's features broadcasted by the Neural Interface suit and blushed as Ruby climbed into the pod relaxing leaving her gear and clothes on the floor. "Okay lets get you plugged in just relax." she said as she inserted some cords into the back of the suit. Ruby flashed a bright smile at her as Olin activated the pod. As it closed on Ruby she looked at the screen in front of her as she felt light headed as her consciousness left the Capital Wasteland, traveling back in time to the Great War…in the cold harsh mountains near Anchorage, Alaska. She groaned feeling cold snow and rocks as she heard a voice, "Hey, Hey buddy you alright?"


	28. Chapter 28:The Winter Ghost

"Hey Buddy! Come on groan if your still alive!" Sergeant Benjamin Montgomery said to the unconscious woman before him. As if on cue Ruby groaned as she slowly stood up grasping her head in pain. "I feel like I'm having a hangover from hell…" Benjamin chuckled as he looked behind them in case any Chinese patrols nearby saw the chute. "That was one hell of a fall, damn C-220's dropped us all over the damn mountain range I doubt anyone else is left." Ruby looked around examining her surroundings, _So this is Pre-War Alaska huh…? I'd have loved to come here in real life it seems nice in a dangerously cold and hostile kind of way. _She thought as she looked at Benjamin while checking her gear. From what she could tell Sergeant Benjamin Montgomery was a young man with brown hair and brown eyes, looking to be in his late 20's or early 30's. Ruby's heart sank when she thought of the hell this guy must have went through after stopping the Chinese invasion only to have the country he served to defend get nuked several months later. "You poor bastard…" She whispered as he looked at her again. "I wasn't sure you were going to make it when I saw you fall, although I wasn't able to find your gear, sorry."

Ruby smiled as she saw that all she had was a suppressed 10mm pistol and a trench knife fitted with a spiked brass knuckle handle. "Don't worry about it Sarge I'll make do with whatever we find around here." Benjamin frowned as he loaded his assault rifle, "Well since our mission is to clear out this facility and go for those guns its better if we split up so they don't club us both immediately. I'll take em from the cliffs" He said as he flicked his thumb to the trail in front of them. "You can make it in that way since you lost your climbing gear, okay you got two choices either sneak your way through or go guns blazing, either way good luck soldier!" Ruby nodded as she watched Benjamin walk up to the cliff and begin climbing. She looked at her pistol as she smiled to herself, "Its like a cleaner Scarlet." She mumbled grabbing her helmet and goggles putting them on and sliding up her winter mask protecting her skin from the harsh cold. "Luckily stealth is my specialty…" whispering to herself as she crept cautiously up the trail hearing footsteps on the platform ahead. She took out her trench knife clenching the handle tightly in her other hand as she peeked out from cover seeing a lone soldier dressed in a uniform she could only assume as the Chinese military. She looked onwards to the other platform seeing another trooper moving in a set guarding pattern. She switched her knife into a reverse grip sneaking towards the first one quickly catching him in a tight hug having her knife pressed against his neck as she shot the other trooper across the bridge. She quickly dispatched her hostage with the knife dropping him but instead of just simply falling in a bloody heap he vanished into a process of recycling data only to appear for the next person who takes part in the simulation.

"Well that almost takes the fun out of killing these guys, then again they are about as stupid as some of the American soldiers around this time…poor bastards…" She said sighing and continuing onwards towards the facility finding a sniper rifle in one of the Cliffside buildings. Ruby grinned as she looked through the scope, "this maybe VR but these Chinese troops have no idea at the hell that's coming to them." She continued haunting the communist forces sniping soldiers despite the intense blizzard. Ruby knew she was supposed to be doing this just so she could unlock an armory for the Outcasts in real life but damn it if she wasn't having too much fun living an actual battle from a war she had only studied and learned about back in the vault. She ran into what seemed to be a side building taking cover from the intense cold and the Chinese patrols searching for her slamming the door as she did so. She sighed in relief convinced that she was able to evade them as she took a look at herself. She was wearing the standard issue combat uniform and armor given to U.S. troops at the time only this was made for arctic and winter combat. "Doesn't feel too practical…ugh give me a tactical vest any day…" She looked and saw that she still had her Pip Boy which made her happy, her own personalized background stared back at her as she lowered her arm and began searching through the room finding a terminal and a briefcase. She sat down putting down her sniper rifle as she began scrolling through the tunnel collecting data about security protocols, Minuteman nuclear missile launch times and launch sites, as well as different security codes. "Wow the Brotherhood of Steel would probably shit themselves if I showed them this data…then again since they have the Citadel they probably would know." She also wasn't sure if the data she just collected on her Pip Boy was even relevant anymore in the Capital Wasteland. She shrugged to herself logging out and searched through the briefcase finding classified Chinese documents. "Nice! I bet I'm going to get some kind of bonus for collecting more intel when I'm done with this!"

She waited for a while until she figured that the Chinese were done looking for her and went back outside continuing on her way into the base. Ruby tried her hardest not to purr or giggle when she heard the snow crunch under her boots it was such a new feeling to her compared to the dirt and rubble of the Wasteland. _Why couldn't we get nuclear winter in the Wasteland? That would be awesome! _She thought as she gunned down more Chinese soldiers in the guard post she entered. Inside she was able to find a Chinese standard issue AK-74u assault rifle leaning up against a table containing some fragmentation grenades. "Merry Christmas to me!" She said giggling happily as she greedily swiped the grenades and grabbed the assault rifle giving it a clean once over. "Well its much different than my M4 but I can adapt…" She mumbled clicking off the safety and loading it.

She continued moving towards the facility now more loudly as she cut down Chinese soldiers with her newly found assault rifle. When she finally arrived at the bridge leading to the entrance of the base she immediately dove for cover upon seeing the two bunkers covering the bridge with machine guns and the overlooking guard tower on top of the entrance which she could only guess was likely carrying a sniper. _I can get the sniper but those bunkers will still be a huge problem there isn't a damn ounce of cover on that bridge I'd be fucked for sure! _She quickly thought of a plan as she looked around for any alternate routes to flank the bunkers, that was when she saw the small side trail leading up to the bunkers from a cave. "There…now all I have to do is find the entrance to that cave and then I'm gold…" It didn't take her long to find both the door she was looking for to get into the cave and then the sniper she knew was surveying the area through his scope. "This should stir some chaos…" She whispered smirking to herself as she squeezed the trigger firing just as the sniper spotted her position as he seemed to jolt stiffly as the bullet smashed through his scope striking through his goggles and into his eye hitting his brain as he fell from his perch to the ground below. Ruby giggled to herself watching the soldiers react to their friends death running to investigate as she slipped into the cave.

"I'm the last woman they'll ever see…" She whispered to herself giggling looking up to see a US soldier caught in his parachute frantically trying to cut himself free as he dangled over the cave floor. As she rushed to rescue him she heard gunfire and saw him fall to the floor vanishing into data. That was when she noticed the two Chinese soldiers standing in the clearing in front of her as one reloaded his rifle. "You assholes!" She yelled as she ran at them using more ammo than was really necessary to kill them both. "I could have had another buddy to hang with out here in this winter wonderland damnit!" She said stomping the floor and noticing the large object on the floor where the soldier would have landed when he fell. "No way…" She whispered as she walked over to it putting away her assault rifle picking it up and holding it in her hands. "A M-128 recoilless Gauss rifle?!" She squealed as she hugged it tightly like a teddy bear caressing the barrel. "I wasn't sure these babies even truly existed but here I am holding one!" She squealed again as she mashed one of her micro fusion cells into the loading chamber. She looked up at the parachute as she purred from holding the weapon. "Your sacrifice will not be in vain John Doe!"

She pulled back her winter mask and began to cackle loudly as she ran outside firing her new weapon into anything that moved tossing out spent micro fusion cells and loading new ones in at a rapid pace. "This weapon is AWESOME! It sends people flying!" She said laughing as she drank water from her canteen. She took out a grenade as she walked towards the entrance, _Might be a few guys inside covering this door…_ She thought as she slightly opened the door pulling the pin on the grenade counting to three as she cooked it and then tossed the grenade inside quickly slamming the door. She winced as she felt the door thump against her back from the resulting explosion before peeking inside seeing three gored up Chinese soldiers on the floor disappearing. Ruby purred as she stepped inside hearing what sounded like a struggle above her as she walked into the next room seeing a Chinese soldier falling from what seemed to be a vent vanishing as she saw Benjamin Montgomery next jumping out and landing in front of her. "Hey Sarge! You made it here alive!" She said happily as if she were talking to a long lost brother. He grinned as he reloaded his rifle, "Sorry about being late I'd have came to meet up with you sooner had I not gotten stuck on the cliffs. Who knew the Reds were good with sniper rifles?" He said chuckling.

Ruby cracked off her signature psychotic grin as the two proceeded through the base fighting their way through Chinese troops as they went. Ruby took advantage of the opportunity as she swiped all the supplies and intel they could find. Suddenly as she was gathering Micro fusion cells for her Gauss rifle and gathering ammo for her weapons she heard Benjamin gasp. "Holy shit…Those are their Chimera tanks down there…there's so many of them…" She walked up to where he was looking and it take her to look through her sniper's scope to see the large mass of mechanized masses looming far down below. "Wow…so many tanks…" was all she could say before cracking a smile looking at Montgomery, "Think we can go down there for a closer look Sarge?" Benjamin looked at her shocked and appalled, "That wouldn't be a good idea, we need to stay focused on our current mission and besides…" He said as he looked down where the tanks lay stationary. "It would take too long to find a trail leading down there." Ruby let her shoulders fall as she whimpered out a "Awww" before cracking another smile and walking away continuing with the mission as she heard Benjamin mumble to himself. "A nutcase, I've paired up with a fucking insane nutcase…!"

They continued walking until they found what seemed to be an ammo storage room. _At least it seems like we are getting close to our objective… _Ruby thought as she looked around at all of the artillery shells noticing very few of them were in the room. "Huh…looks like the Reds are running low on ammo, maybe we didn't need to come here after all." Benjamin said just as dumbfounded as she was. It wasn't long after fighting through another set of rooms that they ran into the actual loading chamber for each of the guns seeing what looked to be thousands of shells. Ruby glared at Benjamin as if to say "You were saying Sarge?". He seemed to read her very thought as he silently swore, "Okay okay so I was wrong, lets just get up to those guns and take em out. _Well at least I know our objective. _Ruby thought as she looked around the room immediately noticing the distinct lack of troops within the room. Both Ruby and Benjamin stepped into the room cautiously looking around for signs of movement. "Uhh Sarge? Permission to speak freely?" Ruby asked as she could swear she saw a blurred figure dash from behind some crates and hide behind one of the loading belts. "Granted Private what's on your mind?" He said being as alert as she was. "Well I'd hate to be ridiculously cliché sir but I have a bad feeling about this." Benjamin said nothing as he looked around for signs of trouble.

Suddenly they both heard footsteps as Ruby turned to see a blurred figure running at them as it materialized into the form of a man wearing a black suit brandishing a sword. Benjamin turned and saw him as Ruby quickly gunned him down. "Shit! Dragoons!" He yelled as more appeared from their hiding places running at them brandishing swords. The duo quickly got back to back and fired at the ambushing special forces members as Benjamin yelled "watch where you shoot! We don't want to set off these artillery shells!" warning her of the live ammunition in the room as Ruby stopped to reload her assault rifle. Suddenly a Dragoon appeared in front of her bashing the rifle from her hand and attempted to slash her along her chest with his sword. Ruby quickly responded in kind ramming her elbow into his ribs and taking out her trench knife stabbing into his chest as she held him. Benjamin whistled impressed with Ruby's skills as the Dragoon fell to the floor vanishing with his brethren "Maybe I ought to take the close quarters combat course you obviously took in basic when we get back home huh private?" Ruby smiled happily as she picked up her assault rifle checking it for damage before following Montgomery outside sliding up her winter mask getting a view of the wide open field seeing explosions guessing that that's where other US troops were currently dug in. She heard loud pangs of thunder as she looked to their sides and saw the guns they came to destroy.

"There's the guns, we gotta take em out quickly before they kill more of our guys…!" Ruby gazed at the first gun's position through her sniper's scope counting the guard strength. "So you think we should stealth our way through?" Montgomery asked. Ruby lowered her rifle and looked at him as if he were stupid. "Fuck stealth lets just go in there and kill em all, nice and simple." Benjamin smiled as he loaded his rifle, "I like the way you think lets do this!" The duo then stormed each position placing charges on the guns as they went. Albeit Ruby began to move faster after she realized that the charges they were setting on the guns were timed and she wanted to get the hell out of dodge as soon as possible.

They had just gotten halfway down the trail down the mountain when they both heard the loud explosions of each of the artillery guns being destroyed from the detonated charges. Ruby smiled in relief knowing that they had finished what was likely the first leg of the simulation as they returned to the regimental command post. Benjamin stretched sighing as he looked at her, "You did a kickass job out there." He said as he patted her shoulder. "General Chase is most likely going to want to see you so you better get over to the command tent." Ruby's eyes widened like marbles at the thought of meeting General Constantine Chase, a guy she had only heard about in her history class. She said her goodbyes to Benjamin and walked over to the command tent sliding off her goggles and mask seeing the man himself at a briefing table as she stood at attention saluting. Before she could say anything he walked over to her fixing his white officer's trench coat as she noticed the ribbons on his uniform. _Holy crap this guy has really been around the block. _She thought as she remained at attention. He smiled as if he were a tired yet youthful old man as he said "At ease soldier I heard about your's and Sergeant Montgomery's actions up in the mountains, damn fine work soldier those guns were giving us serious hell!" Ruby quickly responded in her most professional tone unsure whether this walking war hero deserved her respect or not. "The Reds didn't know what hit them sir!" General Chase chuckled patting her shoulder as he said. "I like the cut of your jib soldier! Remind me to recommend you for a promotion when this battle is over!" He said and that was when his face changed from a officer who just received good news to a mean grimace as his voice became condescending. "However while you were up there playing Boy Scout hiking through the mountains we were down here fighting the war! Those guns pounded the living crap out of us and we took some heavy losses one of which being my Strike team leader Colonel Patterson!"

Ruby winced as she resisted the urge to risk court martial and assault a superior officer and beat him to death for downplaying hers and Benjamin's roles in saving the lives of everyone in the camp and in the trenches. _Well I don't see you clad in combat armor and out there bleeding for the guys in the foxhole next to you. _She thought bitterly as General Chase continued speaking. "As a result we've got the Reds backed into a corner and in light of your success I'm making you the new Strike Team commander, congratulations soldier!" He said proudly leaving Ruby shocked at the thought of leading a group of men and women onto the battlefield. "If you need help speak to Lieutenant Morgan about the details until then lets get to the briefing."

An hour had passed as Ruby finally walked out of the command tent listening to General Chase's briefing and Lieutenant Morgan's comedic quips as she had formed her squad. She turned to see Benjamin standing with a group of four soldiers that had appeared from no where. She walked up to him "Hey Sarge looks like we are together again to go for these objectives General Chase wants us to hit huh?" Benjamin seemed to jump and salute to her chuckling. "Yeah it seems like it sir, by the way since you're the new leader of the Strike team I'll be following your orders now as well so please just call me Benji okay?" Ruby chuckled trying hard not to giggle. _Benji?! that's so hilarious! Its also a kind of adorable name for a badass soldier of the Corps like Montgomery here. _She thought as she looked at the team each of them saluting and standing at attention. "At ease guys we aren't moving out yet." She said smiling as she walked up to the sniper of the team and began having them introduce themselves. "Name?" Ruby asked, the woman quickly loaded her sniper rifle and looked at Ruby with sharp beautiful baby blue eyes. "Lance Corporal Diane Strassman sir, just point me at the Chinese chairman and the war will be over quick." Ruby chuckled as Diane seemed to smile, "All we are asking for today is to just get em off our soil Corporal no need to swim all the way across the Pacific yet." She walked to the next soldier who looked to be in his early 20's. "Name?" He seemed to twitch either showing signs of chem usage or combat adrenaline Ruby wasn't sure as he clicked the safety off his assault rifle loading it. "Private First class Jonathan Kowalski sir! Raring and ready to go kick some ass!" Ruby patted his shoulder. "Calm down there Private or you'll be dead before you even get to see the Reds." He yelled out a "Yes Sir!" as Ruby moved over to a young African American man who looked to be his mid twenties carrying a medical insignia on his armor as he carried extra stock of equipment grasping his assault rifle. "Name?" Ruby asked as he looked at her quickly loading his rifle, "Corporal Henry Donald Jones sir! I'll be the Strike Team's Corpsman for the duration of the op!" Ruby smiled as she shook his hand. "Good to have you on board Doc, we will definitely need you out there when shit hit's the fan." Henry nodded as Ruby moved onto the last member of the group, a tall muscular Hispanic man cradling a 10mm SMG in his arms and a missile launcher slung over his shoulders. Ruby seemed to take note of his rather attractive physique as she asked "Name?" He loaded his SMG as Ruby noticed several grenades strapped to his belt ready to be thrown. "Lance Corporal David Vasquez sir I'll be the Strike team's solution in the event we run into armor." He seemed to grin proudly at his skills with explosives as Ruby couldn't help but smile as well. _God I wish there was a guy like this in the Wasteland I'd be all over him!_ She thought giggling to herself.

"Good Good those Chimera tanks wont know what hit them." She said nodding to David as she turned towards the rest of the team. "Okay all of you gear up and grab some quick chow we will be moving out soon!" The team saluted as they simultaneously yelled "Sir yes sir!" Ruby nodded to Montgomery as she herself went to prepare grabbing more gear than was requisitioned to her by Quartermaster Hendricks and meeting Doctor Adami whom Ruby was really wanting to "break regulations" with. It was past noon when she met up with her squad again as spoke, "Alright boys and girls saddle up! We are moving on the Chinese Chimera Tank Depot and our first stop is their Ice camp so lets move!" So began Ruby Hanson's career of being the leader she never thought she'd really be.


End file.
